OLoCA

Mark J. Reed markjreed@gmail.com
Wed Jul 30 21:33:00 GMT 2008


> Uriel Apeiron wrote on 30 July 2008 20:23:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was poking around the Cygwin site and noticed the 'acronym' section.
>>  The section should be called 'abbreviations'.  Acronyms are a subset
>> of abbreviations that a person can say like a word, like squares are a
>> subset of rectangles.  All acronyms are abbreviations but not vice
>> versa.  CIA is an abbreviation, NASA is an acronym.

"There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the
various terms (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#Nomenclature)
... [acronym] is widely used to describe any abbreviation formed from
initial letters".

Bonus terminology: those who restrict "acronym" as you do can refer to
the non-acronym abbreviations such as CIA as "initialisms" (as
distinct from other sorts of abbrev.)

Also, beginning a conversation by making bald statements of the
"You're Doing It Wrong" form might get one branded as rude.  Which you
might or might not care about.  Just something to consider.

-- 
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com>

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