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

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

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...

[cellio]

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".