Re: Question about HTML abbr and acronym tags

On 10 Jan 2008, at 22:10, David Woolley wrote:

> Nicholas Shanks wrote:
>
>> This reflects my usage:
>> <acronym> Abbreviations that are acronyms (as per previous defn.)
>> <abbr class="initialism"> Abbreviations like FBI, BBC
>> <abbr class="truncation"> Abbreviations like cont. defn. etc.
>
> You've changed your definitions!  The ones you now use are the ones  
> I understand to be most correct English, and appear consistent with  
> the OED definition of acronym.
>
> However, you started by saying:
>
> <http://www.w3.org/mid/B9E3D03F-7FD1-4A3C-A552-72ACCCE29E68@nickshanks.com 
> >
> * acronym: an abbreviation of a phrase constructed from the initial
> * letters of its constituent words.

I suppose I meant to add "that are pronounced as words". It was a  
clarification error in the first email, my definitions haven't  
changed. Sorry for the confusion! As you say, it is a confusing topic.

> That makes BBC an acronym,

no, it's an initialism, by my terms.

> which you also backed up by criticizing the BBC for using different  
> capitalization for BBC and Nato.

Not correct. I was criticising them for not using "N<small-caps>asa</ 
small-caps>" and using "NASA" or "Nasa" both of which I feel are  
inferior as they loose the meaning small-caps convey.
That was independent of whether they use FBI or F.B.I. (the common  
choices for initialisms. BBC is invariably rendered without full stops.

- Nicholas.