[whatwg] whatwg Digest, Vol 33, Issue 90 (Krzysztof ?elechowski)

[Krzysztof Żelechowski]

You may be right but this theory seems to be very specific to the
English language.  For example, you silently assume that "URL" is an
abbreviation; acronyms like "ZUS" or "PKO" are not considered to be
abbreviations in Polish.  The term "initialism" is stranger to HTML so
this distinction is essential for academic linguistic papers only;
Aspell does not even recognise this word.  However, the distinction
between an acronym and an abbreviation is clear and intuitive.

Chris

Dnia 12-12-2007, Śr o godzinie 22:29 +0000, Sam Kuper pisze:
> Dear Chris,
> 
> Your classifications are incorrect, as is your rule of thumb. The
> following excerpt should clarify things:
> 
> "Initialism[s] originally described abbreviations formed from
> initials, without reference to pronunciation. ... [Some people]
> differentiate between the [terms 'acronym' and 'initialism'],
> restricting 'acronym' to pronounceable words formed from the initial
> letters of the constituent words, and using 'initialism' ... for
> abbreviations pronounced as the names of the individual letters. In
> the latter usage, examples of proper acronyms would be 'NATO' ... and
> 'radar' ..., while examples of initialisms would include 'FBI' ... and
> 'HTML'...
> 
> There is no agreement on what to call abbreviations whose
> pronunciation involves the combination of letter names and words, such
> as 'JPEG' ... and 'MS-DOS' ... . These abbreviations are sometimes
> described as acronym–initialism hybrids...
> 
> There is also no agreement as to what to call abbreviations that some
> pronounce as letters and others pronounce as a word. For example, the
> internet term 'URL' can be pronounced as individual letters or as a
> single word."
> 
> (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A​cronym_and_initialism)
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Sam
> 
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Krzysztof Żelechowski <giecrilj at stegny.2a.pl>
> > To: Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch>
> > Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:20:56 +0100
> > Subject: Re: [whatwg] whatwg Digest, Vol 33, Issue 90
> >
> > Dnia 12-12-2007, Śr o godzinie 08:59 +0000, Ian Hickson pisze:
> > > Most people don't mark up abbreviations or acronyms at all, they only mark
> > > them up at all to give the expansions generally. And for this purpose, it
> > > doesn't really matter which is which (not to mention that different
> > > people disagree on which is which -- I say "ess quere ell" and "ewe are
> > > ell", others say "sequel" and "earl").
> >
> > "SQL" and "URL" are acronyms because they are built from initial
> > letters.
> > "Mr.", "Dr.", "Ch." and "cf." are abbreviations.
> > "i.e." and "etc." are... er... abbreviations?
> > Except for these cases, I hardly see any valid disagreement.  A rule of
> > thumb is that abbreviations are usually written with a dot.
> > Chris