acronyms and abbreviations

[cellio]

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".

Comments

[goljerp]

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")

[lensedqso.livejournal.com]

"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).

[cellio]

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?)

[jducoeur]

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...

[goljerp]

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.

[lensedqso.livejournal.com]

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.

[cellio]

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".)