cellio | acronyms and abbreviations

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acronyms and abbreviations

Dani and I had an interesting conversation about abbreviations and acronyms (pronouncable abbreviations) tonight, prompted by the assertion that the location of a web page is a "u-r-l", not an "url" (rhymes with a man's name). We both consider that obvious, but we both know people who think it's "url". A similar case applies to "s-c-a" (not "sca"), the historical organization we belong to.

So, I asked, what characterizes an acronym? I'm not sure; Dani's take is that an acronym has to "sound like a word" (in English, in our case). (But "url" does, so it's not just that -- but I didn't drill into that.) What does "sounds like a word" mean? I guess it's a comfortable sequence of phonemes, the sort of utterance that would make you say "I don't know what that word means" as opposed to "have you been drinking?". NASA, NARAL, and UNICEF are examples of this. We tried to think of three-letter acronyms; neither of us were sure whether NOW is usually "n-o-w" or "now". (I've heard both and neither makes me twitch.)

I opined that the longer an abbreviation is, the more incentive there is to pronounce it if you can No one wants to say "n-a-s-a" if "nasa" will do; the former is too many syllables. ("I-e-e-e" is cumbersome in a different way, hence "i-triple-e".) With a three-letter abbreviation the cost of spelling it out isn't so high, though Dani thinks there are fewer of them that are going to sound like words. "Ibm" would never be mistaken for a word in the English language; "doj" (sounds like "dodge") would be but we say "d-o-j". So I'm not sure what's going on with three-letter cases.

There was an amusing bit of dialogue:

Me: S-O-S.
Dani: Yeah, but that's interesting because it is a sequence of letters in Morse Code.
Me: That was the first of the two applications of that abbreviation I had in mind.
Dani: (pause) Ok, but you're one of only ten people who remembers Son Of Stopgap.
Me: There've got to be at least 50. :-)
Dani: Stopgap, on the other hand...

And yes, I pronounce it "s-o-s" either way; while "sos" doesn't sound unreasonable as a word, it feels completely wrong as a pronounced reference to an early text editor. (Which, by the way, I suspect is remembered by thousands of people.)

Addendum: Combined forms. "H-vac", not "h-v-a-c", but "b-a-t-f", not "bat-f".

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I keep saying 'url'. Drives

kr1mz0n_ghoti up the wall.

It makes sense to me *shrug* :)

but yeah, I say s-c-a and scadian, but not 'sca'.

Three letter acronym: WHO. World Health Organization. We NEVER called it the latter.

Thanks. Yes, that's definitely "who", not "w-h-o". Another I just thought of is PAC.

And whenever I hear it, it's "w-h-o". Huh.

I can't help but think of "Who's On First?"...

The first dictionary I checked online (M-W) shared my usage, but a subsequent search found definitions that didn't.

I think that the distinction between an acronym and an abbreviation formed from initial letters is lost.

The definition I linked calls both NATO and FBI acronyms, and I would, too. I think the pronounceability factor doesn't affect whether or not it's an acronym, in current usage (or rather, in my current usage, though I think it's shared).

As for pronouncing them, I think it's going to depend on the letters involved. The pronounced version likely needs to feel shorter than pronouncing individual letters, but it also has to have enough vowel sounds to sound like a word.

About your addendum...I don't see many of those up here...not sure why. But I think they mainly tend to work as initial letter + pronounced word. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is that our version of C-SPAN is the "Cable Public Affairs Channel," CPAC pronounced CEE-pak. Maybe there's something about the letter name being an accented syllable in the acronym. *shrug*

I clarified what I mean by acronym because I know some people equate it with abbreviation. I just didn't want to have to keep saying "pronounced abbreviation" or some such. :-) Most of the time, the distinction isn't important so it's fading away.

The pronounced version likely needs to feel shorter than pronouncing individual letters, but it also has to have enough vowel sounds to sound like a word.

Yup. I was speculating last night that the vowel needs to be in the middle (for a three-letter acronym), but Dani counterproposed a hypothetical INK that we would pronounce "ink", not "i-n-k".

I agree with you on "c-pac", and I say "c-span".

It's a matter of how things can be pronounced, I think. I think of "jay-peg" as a pronounced word (like "fak") because that's the only natural way to combine jpeg into anything resembling words. When you have consonants that don't normally appear in that order appearing next to each other you almost have to use the letter for one or the other if you're going for a natural pronounciation.

I wonder if specialized 3-letter acronyms are more or less likely to be spelled out... but most that I thought of (PCR, MRI, NMR) were spelled. Anyhow, there were two that I thought of that don't fit the pattern:
SQL (I've heard it both S-Q-L and "Sequel") and JPEG (I think of it as "J-peg")

"sequel" gives me hives. Always has. I worked at a database company where most people used "sequel" so I got somewhat sensitized to it, but I still hate it.

Does MRI qualify as an acronym? It's a made up name because they didn't want to scare people by keeping NMR and scaring people with the nuclear connotation. I guess it does technically expand out to magnetic resonance imaging, but the common usage is MRI or NMR or nuclear magnetic resonance (at least from the scientific side).

I was trained to say "sequel" when I first worked with it. (I said "s-q-l" and someone told me that real DB people say "sequel". What did I know from real database people at the time?)

I originally learned it as "squirrel", not for any good reason but simply because it seemed like a word based on those letters that made sense for the concept. (As in "squirreled away".) But years of working in serious DB environments eventually got me saying "sequel" instead...

Does MRI qualify as an acronym?

Even though, as you say, it was made up to prevent people from being scared, I think it does count as an acronym, as opposed to, say, "cat" or "biff" which have backronyms associated with them, but really aren't.

When I was a practicing Chemist (or practicing to be a chemist?) we only ever said NMR.

I just thought of another pronounced 3-letter acronym: gif. A former cow orker and I used to get into arguments as to whether it was pronounced with a hard or soft g, but neither one of us would dream of saying g-i-f.

Yeah, physicists use NMR or nuclear magnetic resonance more formally most of the time, using MRI only when specifically referring to the medical diagnostic tool. I've never seen or heard one use magnetic resonance imaging instead of MRI. Even in formal talks and papers it's MRI.

Most of the graphics formats seem to be pronounced as words rather than as initials. GIF, TIFF, JPEG, SWF, etc. About the only exception I can think of is SVG, but there isn't really a word equivalent for it.

You raise a good point. I've been talking about "pure" acronyms, where the pronunciation is derived entirely from the letters present. You couldn't pronounce PCR, MRI, or NMR without inserting vowel sounds, which is what some people do with SQL. So there are quasi-acronyms out there, too.

I think "j-peg" is like "h-vac", structurally. (I don't think I've ever heard someone say "j-p-e-g", though another commenter has heard "h-v-a-c".)

Do you say "faq" or F-A-Q? It would seem inconsistent to me to say "faq" and "U-R-L" (or vice versa).

And for the record, I do say "sca" (you can take the kid out of the Midrealm, but...).

"U-R-L" and "fak" here, at least when I don't think about it (I try to say "F-A-Q" because I know that's more standard usage, but I have to think about it every single time).

I try to say "F-A-Q" because I know that's more standard usage...

Is it? Everyone I know who's into computers (as opposed to the librarians I work with) says "fak." (In fact, c. ten years ago or so one of my spouse's colleagues (math/CS prof) was amused at my usage of "F-A-Q," saying that he'd never heard anyone pronounce it that way before :-)

I know it's generally been "F-A-Q" when I've been on interviews or having discussions in formal settings and I've gotten some really strange looks when I've said fak instead.

I say "faq". It feels natural to me in a way that "url" doesn't. I don't know how much is collision (there is no word "faq" but there is a word "earl", but that alone clearly isn't a factor or I wouldn't say "pac"), how much is starting with the "u" specifically (that initial glottal stop carries load), or how much is that soft "u" sounds weak and ugly to me compared to "yoo". (Heh. Maybe I'm trying to make it not be a homophone with "earl" and that's where my troubles are? But hearing "url" grates on my nerves too, so it's not just about my own speaking.)

I don't think there's any real rhyme or reason to it, but I agree: I spell out URL, but pronounce FAQ...

To me, that's a form of music (ska).

And if you find the answers to your questions, lemme know, because now it's bugging me too! ;-)

And "url" is just WRONG! *g*

FWIW Johan always said h-v-a-c, not h-vac.

Logically one would expect people to pronounce an abbreviation if it reduces the number of syllables or makes it easier to pronounce. I was not familiar with "i-triple-e" but it makes sense: though it's not fewer syllables, i-e-e-e is hard to say, involving either all those glottal stops that Americans hate or slurring the whole thing together into incomprehensibility. :-)

I find it amusing listening to radio and TV people try to get around w-w-w when listing web addresses. Nine syllables (ok, six if you're lazy and say "dub-ya") is a mouthful, so I'm surprised that no standard shortened form has developed (outside of people skipping it entirely and just saying "website.com.")

In the end, I guess it's probably a combination of what "catches on" and what sounds melodious to the speaker that determines how things are said.

Logically one would expect people to pronounce an abbreviation if it reduces the number of syllables or makes it easier to pronounce.

I think the operative feature is "easier to pronounce", which usually means fewer syllables but can mean other things too (like in "i-triple-e"). (Another case of that I thought of: AAAI, an artificial-intelligence group, is "a-triple-i". Again, glottal stops would be a hassle.)

I find it amusing listening to radio and TV people try to get around w-w-w when listing web addresses.

Yup. I've been hearing a fair bit of "dub-dub-dub" lately. I usually just say "w-w-w" when giving someone a URL, but I don't speak professionally or do it hundreds of times a day the way help-desk people might, so that might make a difference. The pedant in me refuses to just omit it; that browsers will fill it in for you does not make it correct. The URL is "http : //www .website.com" (I inserted spaces to keep LJ from linkifying that), not "website.com". It's sort of like saying that my physical address is "(street), Pittsburgh" -- yes, if you write that on an envelope (with my name) the post office will probably resolve it correctly, but it's not my address.

Hmmm, shouldn't that be triple-a-i?

a-triple-i would logically resolve to aiii.

Gah. Typo. Yes, I meant "triple-a i".

Why is it worse to cut off the 'www' than it is to cut off the 'http://'?

It's not worse. I say "h-t-t-p (pause) w-w-w dot ...". Because it could be https or ftp or something else.

I generally do too unless I'm talking to a really non-technical person; most of them seem to find the http confusing.

On a related topic, most of the official corporate style guides at various companies I've worked at in the past several years specify writing www.whatever.com when including URLs. It really bugs me. I don't particularly mind when people drop the http in conversation, but I think the whole url should be included in formal form within written documents.

I usually say "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-www-dot-website-dot-com". If I think my listener is unfamiliar with the web addressing convention I'll pronounce "double-you-double-you-double-you". If I expect the listener is familiar with web addresses I'll shorten that to "wuh-wuh-wuh" (/u/ in this case to rhyme with "but".

Oh, and if it's always 'www', it's more like everyone having the same number, or part of number, in their address, which can then be assumed. I'd see it more like the initial 1 in dialing a phone number (though, yes, there are phones that require dialing it, but for identification purposes, no one ever mentions it).

The link to this post begins "http://cellio.livejournal.com", and adding in the "www" causes a 404.

Many years ago, someone was trying to promulgate "triple-dub" as the best pronunciation of "www": short, distinct and easy to pronounce. It's never really caught on, but I still use it from time to time...

I say "url" and "faq", but if I have cause to talk about SCA, I would say S-C-A. I'm not sure why, except I know that Ska is music, and I don't know anyone named Earl. I wonder if people named Earl say "url"...?

Well, yes, Ska is music--even back in 1980, the year that I joined the Society. In spite of that factoid, everyone I met in the Midrealm said "ska". ::shrug:: One syllable is easier than three, and I'm not giving it up, even if the Easterners tease me about it :-D

Some people I knew at Digital's research labs pronounced the acronyms as single-syllable sounds. For example, Cambridge Research Lab was CRL (curl), Western Research Lab was WRL (wurl). As you might expect, URL was pronounced url.

DECWRL was "dec-wurl" to me too, but it didn't transfer to "url". I don't think CRL ever appeared on my horizon.

Another random data point: I spelled out LLL-CRG, even though one could, in principle, pronounce CRG as "curg".

I went to Case Western Reserve University, which during my tenure was known as CWRU. (The official short form is now "Case", which I expect has alumni of the former Western Reserve University a bit cranky). We usually pronounced this as "crew", especially in compound forms (e.g. the campus network, CWRUnet, was pronounced CREW-net).

Coming late to this conversation, but at least that gives me the advantage of being able to see the interesting continuation in the comments.

I hadn't previously come across this use of acronym: the distinction I'd make (and Chambers backs it up) is that an abbreviation is any kind of shortening (e.g. demo for demonstration), acronym is specifically abbreviation to the initial letters (or syllables, which was news to me). Your distinction - that an acronym has to be pronounceable - is useful, but is it currently correct?

And, for what it's worth, I think a lot of what you are talking about is usage. Yes, some examples would be really hard to reduce to words, and they get spelled ouy, and some are cumbersome as initials and more likely to be translated into "words". But that "Real DB professionals say Sequel" is meaningless unless most ordinary people say SQL, and so on...

American Heritage defines "acronym" thus: "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." I don't claim that American Heritage is authoritative (especially globally); I'm just providing a data point. I think as a practical matter that this meaning is probably fading.

But that "Real DB professionals say Sequel" is meaningless unless most ordinary people say SQL, and so on...

In this case it came up because I said S-Q-L and someone corrected me, in one of those "you want to sound credible with the people you're working with, right?" moments. But yes, I take your broader point; usage does vary quite a bit. I was trying to figure out if there's any rhyme or reason to it, either for a particular person (ok, for me) or more broadly. Looks like the answer to that is "no".

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acronyms and abbreviations

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