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

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 18:25:10 +0000 (GMT)

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, J. Noel Chiappa wrote:

> Anyway, if it's not an acronym if you don't say it as a word, is "TLA" a
> self-referential acronym or not? :-)

Three Letter Abbreviation. self-referential.

L.

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

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From: "J. Noel Chiappa" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 13:21:13 -0500

> From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>

    > Do you like quoting dictionary definitions but don't know the
    > background of how the definitions developed? .. Are you horribly
    > literal-minded but horribly illiterate?

Acrynomius, n,; to become acrimonious over the definition of 'acronym'.

	Noel (who still spells "colour" with a 'u', if you want to know which
		side of the Atlantic I'm from)

PS: Languages aren't static things entirely enclosed in books; if something
comes into general use, it *is* a word. If you asked me what the term "TCP"
was, I'd have said "acronym", since it's i) not for the purpose of remember
ing (which lets out "mnemonic"), and ii) it's formed from the initial
letters. So if everyone thinks "acronym" means "a term derived from the first
letters of a group of words", then that's what it means, and the dictionary
writers will catch up one day.