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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!csn!nntp-xfer-1.csn.net!cbgw1.lucent.com!newshub.netnews.att.com!news From: Allen Kirby <akirby@att.com> 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: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 10:22:01 -0400 Organization: AT&T - ITS Production Services Lines: 35 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <33942889.59D0@att.com> 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> <5mvqtk$ml6$1@nntp.Stanford.EDU> Reply-To: akirby@att.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.20.25.* Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) To: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45661 comp.os.linux.misc:178405 comp.os.linux.x:63289 alt.os.linux:21829 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3480 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:42183 gnu.misc.discuss:31587 comp.unix.solaris:108389 Annelise Anderson wrote: > <snip> > > 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 OK, an acronym IS an abbreviation, but an acronym doesn't have to be 'pronouncable' to be an acronym. An acronym is a special kind of abbreviation made up of the beginning letters of other words. And a word is defined by merriam-webster (www.m-w.com) as: > : any segment of written or printed discourse ordinarily appearing between spaces or between a space and a punctuation mark Therefore FBI is an abbreviation, an acronym and a word. -- --- Allen Kirby AT&T ITS Production Services akirby@att.com Alpharetta, GA.