- From: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
- Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997 08:28:13 -0400 (EDT)
- To: dsr@w3.org (Dave Raggett)
- Cc: w3c-wai-wg@w3.org
From: Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> Subject: Acronyms and Abbreviations? "Acronym element was accepted by HTML group so that proper pronounciation can be done". The ACRONYM element would be used together with the TITLE attribute to specify the expanded name. First, that misses the requirement. The pronunciation of NCIL is "nickel." That is not a TITLE. Acronyms need a more complex lexicographical record than is afforded by one TITLE attribute. [snip] The HTML working group was unable to reach a concensus on the need for a specific element for abbreviations. Thomas Reardon (Microsoft) argued that there was no need since user agents would have access to dictionaries covering nearly all abbreviations. These dictionaries could in principle be used to identify the abbreviations without the need for explicit markup. What do members of this group think? Both "acronym" and "abbreviation" are too narrow to capture the true requirement. There is a general requirement to be able to annotate words with lexicographical expansions. These should be distinguished from navigation tags as a different class of navigand. The requirement that I have come across repeately in working across engineering sub-domains is the ability for the page author to make explicit to the dictionary service at the client side which of various extant meanings a given lexical graph is to mean. Consider it a <jargon> requirment. It means, "In this place, this term must be interpreted in accordance with [value or reference to] definition." This would provide the capability to link to preferred pronunciations of acronyms, etc. In plain text there are homographs. The requirement is to be able to override the default dictionary, not just to supplement it. -- Al Gilman
Received on Monday, 9 June 1997 08:28:19 UTC