RE: Use of ACRONYM
by "John Brandt" <jbrandt04330(at)earthlink.net>
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Date: |
Fri, 15 Mar 2002 18:07:18 -0500 |
To: |
"Liz Bartlett" <khyri(at)idyllmtn.com>, <aware-techniques(at)hwg.org> |
In-Reply-To: |
idyllmtn |
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todo: View
Thread,
Original
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Looks like a I opened a hornet's nest...
I did some checking and more research after I posted my initial message. The
"official" definition on the W3C is as follows:
"The ABBR and ACRONYM elements allow authors to clearly indicate occurrences
of abbreviations and acronyms. Western languages make extensive use of
acronyms such as "GmbH", "NATO", and "F.B.I.", as well as abbreviations like
"M.", "Inc.", "et al.", "etc.". Both Chinese and Japanese use analogous
abbreviation mechanisms, wherein a long name is referred to subsequently
with a subset of the Han characters from the original occurrence. Marking up
these constructs provides useful information to user agents and tools such
as spell checkers, speech synthesizers, translation systems and
search-engine indexers.
The content of the ABBR and ACRONYM elements specifies the abbreviated
expression itself, as it would normally appear in running text. The title
attribute of these elements may be used to provide the full or expanded form
of the expression.
Here are some sample uses of ABBR:
<P>
<ABBR title="World Wide Web">WWW</ABBR>
<ABBR title="Abbreviation">abbr.</ABBR>
Note that abbreviations and acronyms often have idiosyncratic
pronunciations. For example, while "IRS" and "BBC" are typically pronounced
letter by letter, "NATO" and "UNESCO" are pronounced phonetically. Still
other abbreviated forms (e.g., "URI" and "SQL") are spelled out by some
people and pronounced as words by other people. When necessary, authors
should use style sheets to specify the pronunciation of an abbreviated
form."
Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. I have started the long process
of adding these elements to site.
jeb
John E. Brandt
Augusta, ME 04330
>>>
Acronyms are formed by using the initial letters of the
words in a phrase e.g.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
NASA - National Aeronautics & Space Administration
Abbreviations are shortened forms of single words e.g.
etc - Etcetera
bio - Biography
This is the criteria I use when deciding whether to use ABBR or
ACRONYM, but I doubt it matters as far as browser behaviour
when the tags are encountered.
--Liz
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Liz Bartlett*http://www.khyri.com/ 110 E. Wilshire Ave.#G-1
Idyll Mountain Internet*http://www.idyllmtn.com/ Fullerton, CA 92832
Virtual Dog Show Co-ordinator*http://www.dogshow.com/ (714) 526-5656
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