RE: ABBR vs ACRONYM, round 57894174803

David,

I understand that the tendency among people that speak English is to call to
any contraction acronym because, evidently, some find difficulties to
understand the difference between an abbreviation and an acronym.

But I cannot agree with you when you say that "WWW" and "SNCF" are
abbreviations. As I have said, the difference between an abbreviation and an
acronym rests in that this last it is the contraction of a name. I have
taken the nuisance of revising on-line several dictionaries (English
dictionaries) and they define clearly this difference.

I believe that the important thing is that in the specifications it is
defined clearly when the element <ABBR> should be used and when <ACRONYM>.
And that this elements stay, because they are useful. Maybe at this time it
is not too important that a person indistinctly uses one or other, but in a
future it can be it.

Also, I believe that the specifications are not only edited for the
English-speaking world.

Greetings

-----Mensaje original-----
De: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]En
nombre de David Woolley
Enviado el: miércoles, 07 de febrero de 2001 9:12
Para: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Asunto: Re: ABBR vs ACRONYM, round 57894174803


> Yes, WWW and SNCF are initialisms, and from the point of view of HTML 4.01
> and of the natural language they are acronyms, and non abbreviations, but
in
> the example they appear marked as abbreviations.

In the natural language English, neither of these are acronyms.  As pointed
out by someone else, acronym and abbrevation are widely misused (in the
media and elsewhere), but so are virus and bacteria, imply and infer, etc.
(The tendency is to call everything an acronym.)

Received on Wednesday, 7 February 2001 18:55:19 UTC