Abbreviations

Yes it is.

 

Ok, so why is one example an acronym and the other an abbreviation (according
to Dave) then?

 

I usually kill a thread as soon as he gets involved, because they nearly
all degenerate into tedium. At best, they're like the dead cat you found
in the gutter as a kid: there's an almost uncontrollable urge to poke it
with a stick and watch the maggots squirm.

 

Ask Dave. I understand them to be both acronyms.

 

That's quality vileocity, Mr. V.

 

Not with any authority it hasn't, though Ivan remains to be convinced.
In fact the dictionary.com definition quoted above says it is, as long
as you take "word" as meaning something like "a string of lexical
characters that can be pronounced following the customary spelling rules
of the language concerned". No normal English speaker would call USMC,
or BNP, or Msc, or PhD, or NSPCC "words", they are unequivocally
abbreviations. But WAC, RoSPA, LASER, NATO etc are abbreviations that
are almost invariable expressed as words, that is they are acronyms.

It is the absolute essence of an acronym that it is an abbreviation that
is pronounceable following the conventional spelling rules of the
language concerned. The discussion has taken a side track or two with
elisions.

If you say an acronym is any kind of abbreviation, pronounceable or not,
then you are simply taking acronym and abbreviation as synonyms.

Look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary.

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

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Mentioned it to the SO (she's Czech) and she insisted I point out that it's
a drink for old ladies. Slovovice is the true way.

 

If you pronounce USMC as a word, rather than spelling it out letter by
letter, and are understood by everybody around you, then USMC is an
acronym.

USA *could* be pronounced as a word and thus be an acronym, but I've
never heard anybody say it seriously, it is invariably spelled out
letter by letter, so it is an abbreviation, or some would say an
"initialism", which is another class of abbreviation typified by being
constructed from the initial letters of the constituent words of the
phrase it is used to express.

"Acronym" is a particular subset of the general term "abbreviation",
which includes a number of different types of abbreviation other than
acronym.

So all acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are
acronyms.

All scooters are two-wheeled motorised vehicles, but not all two-wheeled
motor vehicles are scooters.

--
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

 

Lady Nina wrote:

Yes. My stuff has been packed, and is en route to Kuwait.

Yes. Thanks. Same deal. I'll reply when I get there.

 

Look up /synonym/ in the OED.

If you say an Ford is any kind of car, driveable or not,
then you are simply taking Ford and car as synonyms.

Now do you see the flaw in your logic?

 

Is it now? Oh well, my SO calls me an old woman at times.
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actually, only the secondary 19" monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster
thingy, the one I'm actually looking at is a 21" Dell-branded Sony
Trinitron.

 

J2EE: in very many ways I can't believe how shite it all is - take
entity beans, say - what a load of pointless abstractional bollocks.
Though I guess it makes it possible for mongs who can't write a
transaction block to access a RDBMS (speaking of which, several people
on the course have admitted to not knowing SQL...).

Today we're doing web-tier stuff, which is more my bag, but as you
say, the inefficiency seems to have been introduced across the board
for it's own sake. Actually, that's not true - in actual fact the
whole thing just reeks of "designByCommittee".

 

<patiently waits for Dave to read subthread>

 

An Ford. Wasn't she a tv presenter?

 

I certainly agree that although Gomez might be able to pronounce USMC, any
member of that force who heard himself being referred to as "'ossmuck" or
something similar prolly wouldn't take too kindly to it ;-)

 

Oops, sorry Dave, shoulda checked first )

 

The Samsung is a flatscreen?

 

can't be me, obviously.

 

the 19" Samsung I was referring to is a CRT monitor, but I have a 17"
flatscreen Samsung on my library PC - it's a nice piece of kit,
actually.