On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, Bob Rosenberg wrote: > At 13:23 -0800 on 01/15/2010, Thierry Koblentz wrote about Re: > [css-d] [OT] RE: <u></u> - why did it have to die?: > > >I don't agree. > >RADAR is an acronym because you're not supposed to spell the letters. > >CPU is an initialism, because you are supposed to spell the letters. > > > >Considering CPU (or else) as both an acronym and initialism would > >allow two different pronunciations. > > Initialisms are a subset of Acronyms - IOW: All Initialisms are > Acronyms since both stand for the initial letter(s) of a phrase > ("RAdio Detection And Ranging" and "Central Processing Unit" > respectively). The way the string is pronounced determines where an > Acronym is also an Initialism. The pronunciation does NOT prevent a > Initialism from being an Acronym.
You have that backwards. Acronyms are a subset of initialisms; not all initialisms are acronyms. -- Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfajohnson.com> =================================================================== Author: Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress) Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell (2009, Apress) ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/