Talk:List of acronyms and initialisms

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This Talk page contains all the discussion from the earlier articles "List of acronyms" and "List of initialisms" (which have been merged), as well as the discussion from the present article, of course.


Contents

[edit] Naming of things/article

This list should properly be called a list of general abbreviations. Acronyms and initialisms are not mutually exclusive sets. Both are subsets of the set of abbreviations. (unless somebody can think of an acronym or initialism that is not an abbreviation.) Of the illustrative samples AIDS is both acronym and initialism, Interpol is an acronym but not an initialism, FBI is an initialism but not an acronym, and ACLU is an initialism which could be an acronym if it were pronounced ak-loo. Eclecticology

If we use the term Acronym for in the pages of the longer names below, an instant cross reference is generated at this wiki. --Chris
user eclecticology is absolutely right kkumpf
True, most of the entries are abbreviations, where there is also a list. But there's no point in trying to list every abbreviation, they are too numerous and dynamic. I suggest cutting it down to the genuine acronyms.
Huh? What happens if we use Acronym for? - Also, who pronounces AKA ("ack-a")? I always read it "ay-kay-ay", but then again, I say "ay-eye-emm" when I knowmany say "ayme" for AIM. Geoffrey
I agree. Furthermore, the non-pronounceable abbreviations should be moved elsewhere from this article. Kingturtle 03:35 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)
After receiving no feedback in reference to this issue, I am going to take the initiative and separate acronyms from abbreviations. Kingturtle 21:11 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Acronyms from urban legends

Under Words that are not acronyms, but urban legends say that they are, I'd like to add "fuck" (incorrectly supposed by some to stand for "for unlawful carnal knowledge"), but I'm not sure that all our readers will approve. Perhaps it's better left on the Talk page. -- Heron

oops, too late. I already added it. Maybe I should put in some expletives deleted :) Kingturtle 21:39 May 10, 2003 (UTC)
Why are SNAFU, FUBAR and Fuck all asterisked out. The word is used in many other places in Wikipedia in full, so it seems kinda strange to find f****d etc here. -- sgb

[edit] Pronounceability issues

I thought that this page was for only pronouncible acronyms, yes? Thus, CPU, said "See-pee-yoo", should not be here? Qaless 10:45 Sep 3, 2003

I'd actually propose that we merge the two lists under one heading, list of acronyms and initialisms, where acronyms could be marked with an "(a)", and initialisms with an "(i)", or something like it, to simplify both the contribution to and maintenance of the list(s). As things stand now, it seems that some contributors who visit one of the lists, 'accidentally' add items that belong to the other list, no matter how clear the initial description of either list might be. Merging the lists could also ease the acronym/initialism borderline case problem, e.g. by allowing such markings as "(a/i)". --Wernher 11:40, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Agree, and starting a merge now, see my note in Talk:List of initialisms. --Wikibob 11:30, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

[edit] Should this word not be here ?

COD is an initialism in my experience

I agree, it's pronounced 'see-oh-dee', unless one thinks of the fish :-). BTW, see my suggestion above, regarding merging of the two lists, which would lead to less confusing in such matters. --Wernher 13:14, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:List of initialisms

[edit] Initialisms vs abbreviations

Is there a difference between initialisms and abbreviations, if so what is it? Dieter Simon 21:28 30 May 2003 (UTC)

An abbreviation is any shortening of a word or phrase, e.g.
  • Mister -> Mr.
  • Johannesburg -> Jo'burg
  • North Atlantic Treaty Organization -> NATO
  • Light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation -> laser
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction -> WMD
Only the last example (WMD) is an initialism, which is an abbreviation composed of the initial parts of words, all the parts being pronounced individually. NATO is not an initialism because it is pronounced as a single word, not as four individual letters. One or two of the above examples, depending on your definition, are also acronyms. My source for this explanation is the OED. -- Heron
I didn't realize that, many thanks, Heron, that's cleared that up --Dieter Simon
It's not quite cleared up. In The Canadian Style (Dep't of Sec'y of State) 1985 p31: "An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from the first letter or letters of a series of other words...An initialism is formed from the initial letters only of a series of words and may not be pronounceable." Which I read as may or may not, esp since not everyone agrees on what is and isn't pronounceable. So NATO and AIDS are both initialisms (no more than the first letter of the words) and acronyms (pronounceable initialisms). Wish I had an OED to see exactly what it says...
OED says (full definitions):
initialism: The use of initials; a significative group of initial letters. Now spec. a group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately (contrasted with ACRONYM).
acronym: A word formed from the initial letters of other words
--Zero 14:09, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Highly interesting -- to me, this seems to say that the class of initialisms is a subset of the class of acronyms; so much the better to merge the two lists (see my list-merging-advocacy posting below). --Wernher 15:35, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Furthermore, I see ASAP in acronyms...and I've very seldom heard it pronounced other than "eh es eh pea". (And is its other pronounciation "eh sap" or "ahsap"? If the former, which sounds most natural to me, then RBOC could not be logically excluded as "are bock".) shrug

[edit] Page protected accidentally

Why the heck the page is protected? -- Taku 16:42 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Probably an accident - it's quite easy to protect a page by mistake, because the link to do so is right next door to other useful links. I've unprotected it now. --Camembert
Thanks. -- Taku

[edit] Talk about confusion

This page would be rather confusing to a new speaker of English. The initial lines of list of initialisms and list of acronyms clearly imply that the distinction has been made as a pronunciation guide. They acknowledge that not everyone agrees with the distinction, but it is nevertheless a useful one to make. However, many of the items under list of initialisms are normally pronounced as words. For example, AIDS, BART, DIMM, FUBAR, KISS, QANTAS, etc, etc. I suggest we clarify the headings, then move the pronounceable ones to list of acronyms. However, there are also regional/personal variations e.g ACl = ay-see-ell or "ackle". Thoughts? --Roger 08:10 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'd actually propose that we merge the two lists under one heading, list of acronyms and initialisms, where acronyms could be marked with an "(a)", and initialisms with an "(i)", or something like it, to simplify both the contribution to and maintenance of the list(s). As things stand now, it seems that some contributors who visit one of the lists, 'accidentally' add items that belong to the other list, no matter how clear the initial description of either list might be. Merging the lists could also ease the acronym/initialism borderline case problem, e.g. by allowing such markings as "(a/i)". --Wernher 11:37, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I agree, and will start the daunting task of merging soon, using Wernher's suggestions on marking as in these examples:
(a) = acronym
(i) = initialism
(p) = portmanteau
But first I will just automatically add (a) to all from list of acronyms and (i) to all from list of initialisms, and others can argue about what should really be within the parenthesis.
(removed my own misunderstandings about redirect here)
merge is half-completed, please see the intermediate subpages:
Talk:List of initialisms/marked
Talk:List of acronyms/marked
- Wikibob 12:27, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)
sort done see Talk:List of initialisms/sorted
Please check the intermediate files if you believe anything got lost in the merge (although I'm pretty confident I got it right - crosses fingers) -Wikibob 14:00, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)

[edit] Internet slang

Should internet slang be included in this list? IMHO, it doesn't belong here. --zandperl 02:33, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed entries

I question BIOS, GUI, LIFO, FIFO, and WASP. TMC1221 00:05, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

This ends all the talk moved from Talk:List of acronyms and Talk:List of initialisms

[edit] Articles merged & #redirected

List of acronyms and List of initialisms have now been merged into list of acronyms and initialisms, following Wernher's suggestion from Talk:List of initialisms. The original pages have each been changed to #REDIRECT list of acronyms and initialisms.

Great, thanks! I don't quite remember, but was there (m)any comments in the Talk pages of the original articles worth moving over to the present Talk page? AFAIR there was much discussion of acronyms vs initialisms and where those should be placed. Some of that should be (easier) resolved as of this merging, at least it's less work changing (a)'s to (i)'s, or compromising on (a/i), instead of moving items from one article to another... :-) --Wernher 22:43, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Old Talk now moved to this Talk page. -Wikibob 01:00, 2004 Mar 5 (UTC)
Thanks; I fmt'ed the threads to make the discussions easier to follow. --Wernher 20:25, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Portmanteaus

I'm wonder whether one should just let List of portmanteaus be on its own, instead of trying to incorporate it into this list of acronyms and initialisms; after all, portmanteaus are quite different beasts than (a)'s and (i)'s... --Wernher 23:26, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree, Interpol is now moved, what about these?
  • SOCCSKSARGEN - (a) a region in the Philippines: South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, General Santos City (pronounced sock-sar-gen)
  • SNOBOL - (a) StriNg Oriented symBOlic Language
  • UNIFEM - (a) United Nations Fund for Women
Wikibob 01:34, 2004 Mar 5 (UTC)
I'm asking for clarification on the accepted definition of Portmanteau on Wiktionary:Talk:Portmanteau (1872), as there's a difference on whether it's derived from two or several forms. -Wikibob

[edit] TLAs

There is a related list of three-letter acronyms (TLAs) at TLAs from AAA to DZZ, etc., which provides links to every possible TLA. Maybe every TLA on the "List of acronyms" page should be a link, so that when people add new TLA pages, the work will automatically be reflected here? -- Walt Pohl 21:16, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'll start now. Several will need cleanup afterwards though. -Wikibob
Are we producing Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not? Lists are interesting but I hope it will not become a Mere collections of internal links. Meanwhile I used XEmacs regexps to wikify the TLA's like this:
Query replace regexp: ^\* \([A-Za-z]\{3\}\)
with: * [[\1]]
All TLA's now wikified. -Wikibob 14:08, 2004 Mar 6 (UTC)
Anyone care to suggest in what category are the words emacs and XEmacs? portmanteaux? -Wikibob 14:25, 2004 Mar 6 (UTC)
Aren't those acronyms? Editing macros... eXtended (or whatever) Emacs... --Wernher 23:44, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Non-English-language expansions

Are we, or are we not, including non-English-language acronym expansions in this list? I notice there are some in the list as of this writing. I'm not quite sure how/whether we should limit this in the English Wikipedia. --Wernher 23:44, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It seems the best policy is only to include acronyms that one would be likely to enconter in English texts. Nohat 15:23, 2004 Apr 6 (UTC)

[edit] Initialism vs acronym

I'm not going to argue about the criteria used for distinguishing acronyms and initialisms, as it is explained that it's just for this list, although in the way most people use the word "acronym" everything on the page is an acronym.

However, the intro says:

acronym
an abbreviation that is pronounced as a series of constituent letters
initialism
is an abbreviation whose pronunciation is wholly or partly the names of constituent letters

how does this apply to acronyms that meet both criteria, such as:

  • JPEG, where the pronunciation is partly the names of the constitutent letters (J), but also pronounced as a series of letters (PEG).
  • SQL, which some people pronounce as a "word" (sequel), and others pronounce as the names of the letters, "EskjuEl".

--Nohat 15:37, 2004 Apr 6 (UTC)

I don't think that they're mutually exclusive. Many entries are listed as being both acronyms and initialisms. Just last night, I updated the listing for USB to be both... I've always said it as "uh-ss-bb," and only rarely do I spell it out as USB. --Cgranade 16:35, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
As Cgranade says, this issue is a non-problem, since we made the (a/i) code specifically to denote abbreviations that may be both initialisms and acronyms, such as SQL. Sometimes, however, a word which qualifies as an (a/i) is recorded as only (a) or (i); please fix such misses at sight.
To Cgranade re USB: do you actually, positively, know for a fact that others than yourself are pronouncing the word like you do, as one syllable? --Wernher 18:31, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, people I talk to understand me well enough... I don't have empirical evidence to support that pronunciation, but I believe that it is indeed pronounced that way. -- Cgranade 00:24, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for a new format.

I wish to submit to community an idea for a new format for this page which represents the item/definition relationship of the data herein expressed. Given the following example of an entry under the current format, please examine the same entry in the revised format.

Current style:

Proposed revised style:

ATM 
(i) Automated teller machine.
(i) Asynchronous transfer mode.
(i) At the moment.

I believe that this format offers several advantages:

  • Empasizes the relationship between acronym/initialism and expansion.
  • Allows for easier organization of multiple expansions.
  • Allows for seperate expansions to be listed as different types [that is, i versus a versus p].

Of great importance is that each entry is not wikified, but rather each expansion is wikified, allowing for multiple definitions to be formatted the same way as single defintions.

At anyrate, I hereby submit my idea to the community for judgement.

Cgranade 02:30, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

That might work well, although I'd be interested in hearing some opinions from others first. The page, as it stands, is messy and disorganized. It needs standardization—of linking, capitalization, punctuation, and translation. Your idea might help make that easier. My primary concern would be the length it would add to the page. From what I understand, there is a maximum number of lines that most browsers can support for a webpage, and that might push us over. Defenestration 21:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
there is no maximum number of line in browsers. you could have "War and Peace" in a single html page. i agree with the proposed style change. --Quiddity 07:59, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 4D

I added that it can mean 4 spatial dimensions. This is most common in mathematics but magic cube is a good example too. —siroχo 20:28, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Removing pseudo-blend redlink

The article pseudo-blend is listed on Wikipedia:Most wanted articles with 20 links. All these links come from List of acronyms and initialisms and its sublists. Further, all Google hits for pseudo-blend seem to be either Wikipedia mirrors or unrelated uses. I am therefore removing the redlinks, since the use of the term on these pages seems to be nonstandard, and in any case it seems unlikely that this could ever become a real article. —Ilmari Karonen 16:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

1. Is there any need for "List of acronyms and initialisms" to be more than a simple index, linking to the appropriate article?

e.g.

"A,B,C and D etc." all open a separate article, why not "J and K etc." ? The list would be simpler to use without this mixed format.


2. At the next level, e.g. "List of acronyms and initialisms: A", is there any need for this to contain such a duplication of information?

e.g.

"AA" contains seven listed alternatives, but opening the "AA" link shows dozens, which in theory could/should be added to the AA entry.

Why not redirect multiple entries and leave single entries, otherwise you end up with two very similar, but inevitably different, listings,

e.g.

AA - See AA

AAAI - (i) American Association for Artificial Intelligence

It might not fit in with some of the semantics, but it would be more user friendly.

Shrew

This list is a work in progress. The in-line lists should indeed be moved off to their own pages, for consistency's sake. The various disambig page contents should be imported, to the extent that they are initialisms and symbols --however, not all disambig entries are of this nature, and disambig pages do not attempt exhaustiveness (which is the hope of these lists). I do think that large entries (such as AA) are best handled by simply sending the reader to the page ("See entry").
Urhixidur 17:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, it's a little clearer, but I still can't see the overall picture. Is there a simple schematic of how all these pages are planned to fit together ? Currently a lot of the information seems to be on disambiguation pages rather than on "Acronym" pages, e.g. searching for AA opens a disambiguation page containing a lot of acronyms, but there does not appear to be a page for an exhaustive AA "Acronym" list - such as "List of Acronyms and Initialisms: AA" (which as a large entry could be a "See entry" link from "List of Acronyms and Initialisms: A"). And looking at pages such as "List of all two-letter combinations" and "Category:Lists of abbreviations" doesn't exactly clear things up either !!
Shrew 12:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
More . .
1. It seems that most acronym information is currently contained on disambiguation pages - and that this is not the place for the complete listings
2. If all the information is added to pages such as List of acronyms and initialisms: P, then these pages will become far too large (way over the 32kB guidelines)
Proposal
Main page List of acronyms and initialisms remains
Sub pages, e.g. List of acronyms and initialisms: P remain
Sub sub pages are created where necessary to contain the complete listing for an entry e.g. "Acronyms and initialisms: PAN" - in this example it basically exists already as PAN
Searching for "Pan" would lead to basically the same Pan disambiguation page as currently available and say . .
Pan or PAN may refer to:
  • An acronym or initialism - with a link to "Acronyms and initialisms: PAN"
  • .. rest of the entries as current
Searching for "PAN" would lead to "Acronyms and initialisms: PAN", with for completeness a link such as "See also Pan (disambiguation) for other meanings" to complete the circle
Note that PAN is a particularly good example for the proposal, most similar entries contain very mixed, and more confusing, lists
Or is this re-inventing the wheel ?
- Oh, and I think that any individual pages should follow the format proposed by Cgranade above
Shrew 13:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
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