Abbreviations

I've looked in FAQ's but couldn't find the answer. There a a number of
abbreviations frequently used here that I have not managed to work
out, FOAK being one. Lots of the others are obvious, is there a list
of the more common ones anywhere?

TCCFA

Brian

 

(Brian) struggled to ejaculate:

www.google.com is always a good starting point, but the example you
mention won't be there - at least for a while.
Neither is it here yet, but this is still a good place to look:
http://www.ukrm.net/clues/acronyms.html

Fo(u)nt Of All Knowledge.

HTH, HAND

 

And here:

http://www.loganact.com/tips/afaik.html

 

And here :

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

 

This site is, of course, maintained by an illiterate sheep who thinks
that "acronym" is a synonym for "abbreviation".

 

Tssssk! Another one who can't tell the difference between an acronym
and an abbreviation!!!!

 

An acronym is a label formed from the beginnings of words (Greek: acro
[head] and nym [word]) -- or very rarely, from letters in the middle of
words. There is no requirement that an acronym be pronounceable as a normal
word (this is a curious myth perpetuated by American dictionaries): IBM is
just as much an acronym as LASER.

 

is.

It should be obvious- even to you- that *any* word is pronouncable,
regardless of its content of vowels and consonants. There are many words in
middle European languages that we in the UK find hard to pronounce without
the knowledge of their language so your conclusion would mean some form
pronouncable words and some aren't, depending on who's pronouncing them.
It's simply n : a word formed from the initial letters of a multi-word
name. An abbreviation is a shortening of a word and usually involves
apostropes or periods to denote that it an abbreviation.

 

Brilliant Des. Come up with that conclusion yourself, did you?

 

If you don't, Porl will.

 

I think it's preferable to the alternative, yes.

 

Eww, sucked by Des <shudders>

 

I don't think, I know. Look up the definition of "acronym" in the
Oxford English Dictionary.

An "acronym" is an abbreviation that is customarily pronounced as a
word using the conventional spelling rules of the language concerned.
Thus the abbreviation NATO is an acronym, because it is not, nowadays,
usual to express it as N. A. T. O., also RoSPA, FORTRAN, COBOL, BUPA,
AIDS etc.

But the vast majority of abbreviations are seldom if ever expressed as
words, such as EU, USA, BNP, CBI, RF, USSR, CD, DJ, HIV etc. These
abbreviations are expressed by spelling out the individual letters, and
if in normal conversation you try to express them as words you will be
unintelligible to your listener.

To sum it up, all acronyms are abbreviations, but only a small
proportion of abbreviations are acronyms. So to call a list of
abbreviations a list of acronyms is patently wrong.

--
Dave OSOS#24 Remove my gerbil for email replies

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Almost true, if you leave out "apostrophe".

The apostrophe is used in the process called "elision". This expresses
the habit of leaving out parts of words, but nevertheless still
pronouncing what is left as a single word. This doesn't make the words
left into abbreviations in the sense of using the initial letters of a
group of words. Thus "do not" is expressed as "don't", and "boatswain"
is "bo's'n" or more commonly today "bosun".

--
Dave OSOS#24 Remove my gerbil for email replies

Yamaha XJ900S & Wessex sidecar, the sexy one
Yamaha XJ900F & Watsonian Monaco, the comfortable one

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OK. Unfortunately, my password for OED Online is on my home PC, which
has just been packed and shipped. Perhaps you'd copy and paste the
definition.

Except that - and this is direct from the OED, by the way - languages
change, whether you like it or not. When a word is used in a
particular way /and understood/ then its meaning has changed.

So if Fred says that BNP is an acronym (instead what it actually is:
"abomination") and Jim understands what Fred has said, then the word
"acronym" now has one more meaning.

 

You're a National Trousseau.

 

For someone who claims to know about language, you know **** all.

 

So what does the word "wicked" mean then Des?

 

I take the point. Other examples are the regrettable use of "media" and
"phenomena" as singular nouns, the former of which is just about a fait
accompli. But for the moment at least the meaning of "acronym" should
be taken as the one in the dictionary.

"Acronym" defines a sub-set of that greater group of lexical items known
as "abbreviations", a sub-set that can be pronounced as words (there are
other sub-sets but let's not complicate it for the uncomplicated minds
reading this). But some people, mistakenly, use as it a synonym for
"abbreviation". If a majority do this, and "acronym" comes to mean
"abbreviation", then we must invent a new noun to express "an
abbreviation that can be pronounced as a word", which is pretty stupid
when "acronym" already does the job. And what would happen to the word
"abbreviation"?

The mechanism in this particular case is probably that "acronym" sounds
sexier than "abbreviation", so it is latched on to by those ignorant of
its currently current meaning to make themselves sound brighter and
sexier than they obviously are. Something that the original poster
obviously didn't need to do because he asked the right question.

--
Dave OSOS#24 Remove my gerbil for email replies

Yamaha XJ900S & Wessex sidecar, the sexy one
Yamaha XJ900F & Watsonian Monaco, the comfortable one

http://dswindell.members.beeb.net

 

dictionary.com defines 'acronym', admittedly with all the absence of
authority which comes from *not* being the OED [Makes Sign Of The Holy
Lexicon], as:

A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women's
Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words,
such as radar for radio detecting and ranging.

Whereas 'abbreviation' is:
1.. The act or product of shortening.
2.. A shortened form of a word or phrase used chiefly in writing to
represent the complete form, such as Mass. for Massachusetts or USMC for
United States Marine Corps.