Re: Acronyms and Abbreviations?

  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