- From: John Whelan <whelan@itp.unibe.ch>
- Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 09:25:02 -0400 (EDT)
- To: www-html@w3.org
Neil Gulati wrote: > I understand: > > Abbreviation: > A shortening of an existing dictionary word. > e.g. Doctor->Dr. Telephone-> 'phone. > > Acronym: > A new word made up of the initial letters of other words. > This is usually a naming convention. An acronym is a noun. > e.g. Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence->SETI. The problem is that in the examples given in the HTML4 spec <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1>, <abbr> is used to mark up acronyms like WWW, HTTP, URI, and SCNF which are not pronounced as though they were words, while <acronym> is reserved for things like NATO and WAC. I'm not sure if making the distinction in this way helps or hinders speech engines; some acronyms are pronounced, others are spelled out, and a few are replaced by their expansions. I would have thought the third option was the default for abbreviations... John T. Whelan whelan@iname.com http://www.slack.net/~whelan/
Received on Thursday, 7 October 1999 09:26:22 UTC