[whatwg] Acronyms & Abbreviations

[Christoph Päper]

2007-12-13 11:27 Smylers:
> why do you believe that distinguishing initialisms-and-acronyms  
> (both labelled as "acronyms") from abbreviations is actually useful?

Abbreviations are usually expanded upon (possibly synthetic) reading  
aloud, acronyms are not (and neither are contractions like /isn't/ or  
shortenings like /spec/).
Acronyms traditionally are set smaller. Some use small caps, but I  
believe those are only valid for minuscules, not majuscules.
Multi-part abbreviations (e.g. /e. g./) are traditionally set with  
reduced width of the spaces in between. This can be achieved in two  
ways, either with   (or similar) or by altering |word-spacing|.

That's only the roman script, though.

This discussion has been held many times before here and elsewhere. I  
don't believe there are new arguments to be made.