Re: ABBR vs. ACRONYM

At 08:47 PM 2/19/2000 , David Norris wrote:
>I have always been under the impression that HTML is normalized to the
>English language.  I believe the HTML spec references this, as well.  As
>such, Merriam Webster (http://www.m-w.com/) defines those two terms as
>such:

I haven't found anything in the HTML spec that references the Mirriam-
Webster dictionary as a definitive source for HTML element definitions.

>ac·ro·nym
>     : a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter
>or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound
>term.
>Neither of those definitions make reference to pronunciation.  The
>examples cited by Merriam Webster are in direct conflict with your
>examples cited previously.

No, they're not.  Do you say "en ay tee oh"?  All of the examples you
site for acronyms _are_ pronounced as words.

Is English your primary language?  Some people who don't speak
English natively may miss the subtlety that not all nuances of a
word -- such as acronym -- are necessarily going to be contained
within the dictionary definition.

PS:  Here's a dictionary that has the same definition as me:

http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/elt/dictionary/default.asp?String=acronym%2A1%2B0&ACT=SELECT


-- 
Kynn Bartlett                                    mailto:kynn@hwg.org
President, HTML Writers Guild                    http://www.hwg.org/
AWARE Center Director                          http://aware.hwg.org/

Received on Sunday, 20 February 2000 00:43:11 UTC