Subject: Re: Last Call: Instructions to Request for Comments (RFC) Authors to BCP

From: "Gibson, Mark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 05:22:00 -0600

>Finally, last para of sectin 4.5, "Mnemonics appearing in the Abstract"
>and 'meaning of the mnemonics "IP" or "TCP" or "MIB"' -- you mean
>acronym, not mnemonic.

Um, you mean abbreviation, not acronym.  No such English word as ip, tcp of
mib as far as I know :)  Mnemonic, ironically, is actually closer in meaning
since IP is kind of a de facto mnemonic for Internet Protocol. 

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=abbreviate*1+0
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=mnemonic*1+0
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=acronym*1+0

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From: Frank Solensky <[email-masked]>
Date: 06 Mar 2003 10:28:39 -0500

Sorry, everyone, I know that the horse is long dead but my wife is a
tech writer:

On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 06:22, Gibson, Mark wrote:
> Um, you mean abbreviation, not acronym.  No such English word as ip,
> tcp of mib as far as I know :)  Mnemonic, ironically, is actually
> closer in meaning since IP is kind of a de facto mnemonic for Internet
> Protocol. 
> 
> 

"IP": _I_nternet _P_rotocol certainly qualifies as an acronym.
The difference between an acronym and a mnemonic is that in the former,
the letters used are really the first letters of the intended phrase. 
While mnemonics often use the first letter of other words, they'll often
be unrelated to the subject.  By way of an example that will make this
message marginally IETF related, there was a pre-CIDR thought to use the
208.0.0.0/8 address space as 12-bit wide network masks.  The mnemonic
for this range was the "C#" class (C-sharp, for the black key between C
and D on a piano).  It was abandoned for CIDR since we all realized that
this approach wouldn't, um, scale.

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From: Frank Solensky <[email-masked]>
Date: 06 Mar 2003 11:51:28 -0500

On Thu, 2003-03-06 at 11:30, Lloyd Wood wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Frank Solensky wrote:
> he should have said 'abbreviations'.
> 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=acronym makes no mention of the
abbreviation being pronounced.  G.B.Shaw's line about two great
countries being separated by a common language comes to mind -- I never
realized that English and American had those distinctions before.

Likewise, http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=abbreviation isn't
limited to first letters of words.

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 16:30:42 +0000 (GMT)

> Sorry, everyone, I know that the horse is long dead but my wife is a

Gee. I can beat that. I'm English. ('My name is Wood. Lloyd Wood.')

> "IP": _I_nternet _P_rotocol certainly qualifies as an acronym.

only if you pronounce it to rhyme with "trip". In conventional
speech (said to rhyme with 'TCP'), it's not an acronym.

The US tendency is to try and pronounce the unpronounceable - CIDR?
It's 'cider'. Does that make it an acronym? No, because any reasonable
English speaker would say the letters. I was surprised to find 'mib'
pronounced to rhyme with 'crib' - that would qualify mib as an
acronym, well on the way from transitioning from abbreviation to word
(much as radar and scuba already have).

L.

principle/principal. complementary/complimentary. learn the
distinction. insure/ensure and loose/lose are already lost causes.

> this approach wouldn't, um, scale.

<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/><[email-masked]>

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From: "David J. Aronson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 10:18:00 -0500

Gibson, Mark replied:

> Um, you mean abbreviation, not acronym.  No such English word as ip, tcp 
> of mib as far as I know :)

Definitions of these terms vary.  The American Heritage dictionary 
(http://www.bartleby.com/61/) uses them the way I do: if it's pronounced 
as a word, it's an acronym, but if it's pronounced as letters, it's an 
*initialism* (which doesn't even appear in the Cambridge dictionary).  I 
have heard MIB done both ways, and even SNMP (with an implied "i" in the 
middle).

At first, this may seem to be a US/UK difference, but Merriam-Webster 
(http://www.m-w.com/) says an acronym is "a word (as NATO, radar, or 
snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the 
successive parts or major parts of a compound term".  However, they say 
an initialism is a *type of* acronym, one formed from initial letters of 
words.  SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is one, but not PCB 
(polychlorinated biphenyl), since the C does not start its word.  Note 
that neither of them is pronounced as a word!  Their "Word for the Wise" 
script from April 11, 2001 (http://www.m-w.com/wftw/01apr/041101.htm) 
uses these examples, and was a response to someone apparently using the 
AH definitions.  It does not have separate terms for acronyms 
*pronounced* as a word or as letters.

Mike Bartman says an acronym is "A Capitalized Representation Of Names 
You Memorize".  B-)

All three dictionaries agree, however, that a mnemonic is something to 
help you remember something, such as "Roy G. Biv" for the colors of the 
rainbow, or "Badly Burnt Resistors On Ground Bus Void General Warranty" 
for resistor colors.  At least Kireeti is correct in that regard.

Anybody got an OED?  Perhaps we need an Informational RFC on this 
important issue!  B-)

-- 
David J. Aronson, Software Engineer for hire in Washington DC area.
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, references, etc.

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 17:40:37 +0000 (GMT)

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Frank Solensky wrote:

> abbreviation being pronounced.

That definition begins with 'A word...' Words are pronounced to be
said.

acronym
noun [C]
an abbreviation consisting of the first letters of each word in the
name of something, *** PRONOUNCED AS A WORD **. (my emphasis)

> G.B.Shaw's line about two great countries being separated by a
> common language comes to mind

two nations divided by a common language.

> -- I never realized that English and American had those distinctions
> before.

Sigh.

Do you like quoting dictionary definitions but don't know the
background of how the definitions developed? (Where Samuel Johnson's
tastes vs Noah Webster's and Ben Franklin's counts for an awful lot.)
Are you horribly literal-minded but horribly illiterate?  Can't help
you there.

> limited to first letters of words.

Since it's 'acronym' that is generally limited in such a way, this
should not be of concern.

L.

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From: "Tomson Eric \(Yahoo.fr\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 22:33:45 +0100

May I humbly participate to this very interesting IETF-related
discussion with the following contribution :

- an abbreviation is a part of a (normally long) word ; e.g.: dino for
dinosaur, photo for photograph, pls for please, pop for popular, thx for
thanks.

- an acronym is a word composed of initials ; e.g.: ASAP, LASER, NATO,
OSI, RADAR, SCUBA, are well-known acronyms. They sound like words, while
they are actually groups of initials.

- initials are the first letters of words ; e.g.: IETF, CIA, FBI, IBM,
RFC, TCP, are well-known initials, too complex to be used as acronyms.

- a mnemonic is any possible trick to remember... something ; e.g.: "All
People Seem To Need Data Processing", to remember A-P-S-T-N-D-P, to
remember the sequence of OSI layers :
Application-Presentation-Session-Transport-Network-Data Link-Physical).

Note that some can belong to different categories : SCSI can be seen
as/pronounced "S.C.S.I." or "SCUSI", SQL can be seen as/pronounced
"S.Q.L." or "Sequel" ; they can be both used as initials or acronyms!

There can also be hybrids, like this very interesting one : ISOC (for
Internet Society) is a mix of an abbreviation (SOC for Society), an
acronym (ISOC is a word based on an initial "I" and an abbreviation
"SOC"), an initial (I for Internet), and a mnemonic (ISOC is better and
easier to identify/remember than IS or I.S.).

Hope this helped in increasing the confusion ;b

___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com

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From: Florian Weimer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 10:45:06 +0100

"David J. Aronson" <[email-masked]> writes:

> Anybody got an OED?

The OED defines "initialism" as "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)".  It references "1984
Word Ways, XVII. i. 48 The work consulted by Wolpow distinguishes
abbreviations and initialisms" -- maybe this is a good place to look
for further information.

"acronym" is "A word formed from the initial letters of other words".

But I doubt that this distinction is helpful in our field.  Quite a
few initialisms are brutally acronymed by significant numbers of
speakers ("SQL", "SCSI", "ACL", "TCAM").

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From: "David J. Aronson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 07:40:12 -0500

Florian Weimer wrote:

 > I doubt that this distinction is helpful in our field.  Quite a
 > few initialisms are brutally acronymed

And nouns brutally verbed....

 >  by significant numbers of speakers ("SQL",

SQL was, once upon a time, called SEQUEL, with the first E standing for
English.  Reasons given vary.  Some say vaguely "legal reasons".  One
professor said the French objected.  B-)

  > "SCSI", "ACL", "TCAM").

TCAM is an example of a further phenomenon, the "partial acronym", at 
least when pronounced "tee-cam"....

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From: Florian Weimer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 14:11:36 +0100

> And nouns brutally verbed....

"acronymed" is blessed by the OED. 8-)

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 07:32:28 -0800

> "acronymed" is blessed by the OED. 8-)

the world really is going to hell

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From: "David J. Aronson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 11:03:25 -0500

> the world really is going to hell

Welcome.  Here's your accordion....

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From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 16:54:43 -0500

>RFC, TCP, are well-known initials, too complex to be used as acronyms.
I never heard this distinction before today.  It seems like a pretty 
strange hair to split in a written forum like the IETF.  It boils down 
to how hard a series of letters is to pronounce in English; but most of 
our communication doesn't get pronounced.

-- 
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