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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.Stanford.EDU!nntp.Stanford.EDU!andrsn.stanford.edu!andrsn From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Date: 3 Jun 1997 01:10:12 GMT Organization: Stanford University Lines: 34 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <5mvqtk$ml6$1@nntp.Stanford.EDU> References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <5l37jg$87j$1@wuff.mayn.de> <5l7jvt$q8b$10@halon.vggas.com> <33776BE4.6883@ford.com> <337C64F0.41C6@cs.ucc.ie> <5lsbv4$id8@bmtlh10.bnr.ca> <3383FA57.4855@uab.ericsson.se> <EAMxy9.EF4@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <3390a559.4210811@news.dircon.co.uk> <3392FE4F.1667@att.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: andrsn.stanford.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA release 961126] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45642 comp.os.linux.misc:178224 comp.os.linux.x:63171 alt.os.linux:21794 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3468 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:42072 gnu.misc.discuss:31574 comp.unix.solaris:108305 In comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Allen Kirby <akirby@att.com> wrote: > Mike Ellis wrote: > <snip> > > Sorry to spoil the fun but these are not acronyms. An acronym is an > > abbreviation which can be pronounced as if it were a word. How on > > earth does one pronounce tcsh ? Most TLAs (three letter acronyms) are > > not TLAs at all. In fact TLA is not a TLA itself. > Wrong. Acronyms are words created from the first letters of other > words, such as: > FBI,MRI,IBM,FDA,FAA,AT&T > Some are pronouncable, like RADAR, but it's the exception. If what you > say is correct, none of the words above would be acronyms. And they're > certainly not abbreviations, so what are they? > They're acronyms. No, they're abbreviations. eff-bee-eye is not a word, except in some programming sense in which it has white space on either side of it. The abbreviation for the United Nations is UN, pronouced you-enn; it's not pronounced "un" as in "undecided." Therefore UN is an abbreviation, not an acronym. tar is an acronym. If you want to call .cshrc "c-shark", then I suppose it's half an acronym.... :) Annelise > -- > --- > Allen Kirby AT&T ITS Production Services > akirby@att.com Alpharetta, GA.