- From: Alan J. Flavell <flavell@a5.ph.gla.ac.uk>
- Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 17:57:28 +0100 (BST)
- To: Chris Kreussling <CHRIS.KREUSSLING@ny.frb.org>
- cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
I had written: > > According to Modern English Usage 2nd edition, an acronym is a > > pronounceable word formed from the initial letters of a phrase. On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Chris Kreussling wrote: > The emphasis on "pronouncable" acronyms is news to me. No Sir, it isn't "news", it's an old fact. The term "acronym" was specifically coined for this purpose. There was already a word, "initialism", for an abbreviation that is formed from the initial letters of a phrase without reference to whether it is pronounced or spelled out. But that term, "initialism", has remained rather a specialist usage, and, as your reaction has demonstrated, the "news" is that the word "acronym" has now lost its specific meaning, and has to be interpreted as a synonym of "initialism". The conclusion seems to be that we no longer have a word that unambiguously means "an initialism that is meant to be pronounced as a word". > What of "words" which are formed from only part of the full word, > such as "Co." for "Copyright," or "Mr." for "Mister?" This is > clearly an abbreviation, not an acronym. Of course: that was not in dispute. > And these abbreviations > are never spelled out, but pronounced in full! Yes, but as they are neither acronyms (by either meaning of the term) nor initialisms, they are outside the scope of the current discussion. > The opposite of "Modern English Usage." No. I don't understand what you're trying to prove by this assertion, but unless it has some significance for the business of this group, I'd respectfully suggest we not pursue that. The only point I was trying to make was this. I look in my reference works (dictionary, MEU2 etc.), and they tell me that acronyms are defined to be pronounceable, You may also refer to http://www.whatis.com/acronym.htm for further support of this view. The HTML4.0 spec doesn't itself attempt to define the term "acronym": it gives two examples that are pronounceable, and hence conform to the original definition, but then wrecks the effect by stating 'Western languages make extensive use of acronyms such as "GmbH"...' - referring to an unpronounceable initialism, not an acronym in the original sense of the term. The HTML4.0 spec goes on to say: "When necessary, authors should use style sheets to specify the pronunciation of an abbreviated form." This now seems inevitable, as we seem to have concluded that no useful guidance can be deduced from the fact that the markup chose ACRONYM rather than ABBR. A pity. Best regards
Received on Wednesday, 28 April 1999 12:57:34 UTC