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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.edu.au!cs.mu.OZ.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!venus.sun.com!uk-usenet.uk.sun.com!usenet From: Tony Walton <tony.walton@UK.Sun.COM.PLEASE.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY> 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? Followup-To: poster Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 17:28:52 +0100 Organization: SunService UK Lines: 54 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <33944644.FEF@UK.Sun.COM.PLEASE.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY> 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> <33942889.59D0@att.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lanka.uk.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4m) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45680 comp.os.linux.misc:178577 comp.os.linux.x:63378 alt.os.linux:21854 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3488 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:42306 gnu.misc.discuss:31611 comp.unix.solaris:108501 Allen Kirby wrote: > > 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. Wrong. An acronym is an abbreviation, but this doesn't mean that any abbreviation is necessarily an acronym. > An acronym is a special kind of > abbreviation made up of the beginning letters of other words. Wrong. > 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. No. It is an abbreviation. What would be the point in drawing a distinction between an acronym and an abbreviation if any abbrevation were to be classed as an acronym? If we're going down to dictionary definitiions (and I admit, I did start it) then you should check what "discourse" means. "To utter, give forth, to speak". If something is spoken then it must be able to be pronounced, IMHO... Setting followups to "poster" as this is getting frighteningly off-topic! Tony