Talk:Abbreviation

Whether to add an apostrophe for a plural, e.g., kms vs km's.

That's a particularly bad example. One may say "twenty kilometers" but this commonly written as "20 km", not "20 kms" nor "20 km's". This makes sense because "kms" could be interpreted as "kilometers times seconds", which is not intended.

The official rule can be found in the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures' International System of Units (http://www1.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/) brochure, section 5.2 point 2 which simply says: Unit symbols are unaltered in the plural.

Furthermore, km is a symbol and not an abbreviation. As such it does not follow the rules for abbreviations. Because the article is about abbreviations and not about symbols, I suggest that unit symbols should not be included here.

Herbee 00:32, 2004 Feb 22 (UTC)

"If used to refer to a country or a group like the United States or United Nations, the period is not included, and only the first letter of the abbreviation is capitalised." I'm sure I've never read Us or Un to refer to the United States or United Nations in any British publication. Sars and Nato, yes, but not Usa or Un. Tjwood 21:46, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, this statement is incorrect, as any search on BBC News (http://bbc.co.uk/news) will indicate. This should be divided into two points:

• If used to refer to a country or a group like the United States or United Nations, the period is not included. In these examples US and UN are used.
• Certain Acronyms pronounced as words (see Acronym) are referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalised. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is abbreviated as Nato, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as Sars.

Edit made. --Air 14:35, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

"Whether to add an apostrophe for a plural, e.g., CDs vs CD's. The apostrophe is not needed grammatically but sometimes is added to make it clear that the s is not part of the abbreviation." I have doubts whether use of the apostrophe is ever 'acceptable'. The entry for Acronym explicitly contradicts (forbids) this practice. --Air 14:42, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 1911 encyclopedia 2 Major edits 3 Distinction 4 Sure all acronyms are abbreviations 4.1 All three 5 Abbreviation 6 Link suggestions

1911 encyclopedia

There is a warning on the page that, being based on the 1911 encyclopedia, "this article may reflect the thinking of the turn of the last century", but the big problem here is surely that it reflects the abbreviations of the turn of the last century. Or, in a way, I wish it did: since paper encyclopedias have always lagged behind their times, the "Abbreviations now in use (1911)" were old-fashioned at the time, as well as being heavily weighted towards academic honors, Church of England titles and Latin phrases (reflecting the priorities of the time). As for the lists of "Classical [=Roman] abbreviations", a really long list, and "Medieval abbreviations", who's going to look for them in this article? If their existence on Wikipedia is any use to anybody - I defer to Classical and historical scholars - is it, honestly? - surely they should be moved to Roman empire or similar? It's not that I don't appreciate the trouble someone took to scan and upload portions of the 1911 encyclopedia, but I suppose the intention was to eventually evaluate which bits were of an any use. And I also appreciate that the big need of this article is for an updated abbreviations list, rather than for just getting rid of the useless parts of the old one. But still, wouldn't that be a start?

I'm pretty new at Wikipedia. There may be an ongoing general project , that I haven't heard of, for getting rid of the obsolete parts of the 1911 encyclopedia - but if there isn't, can't we make a start by deleting some of it right here? My suggestion would be that we keep the list of "Abbreviations denoting moneys, weights, and measures" - abbreviations for hogshead and farthing are cool with me - and lose the rest. What do you think, people? Bishonen 20:42, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If anything, I'd say to move them to sub-pages such as "Medieval abbreviations" &c., and link to those pages from this one. The source (1911 encyclopedia) of the abbreviations is probably not important, but the content is worth preserving. DenisMoskowitz 17:56, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)

Major edits

I've gone ahead and removed the lists - they were too long to keep inline in the page. I've also added sections. The article actually looks sensible and nice now. Not sure what to do about current examples, does list of acronyms and initialisms cover this (I suspect the line is blurred). zoney ███ talk 01:30, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Distinction

Come to think of it... are initialisms and acronyms subsets of abbreviations? There's no discussion here of the distinction. zoney ███ talk 01:32, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not all abbreviations are acronyms: acronyms can be pronounced as if they are one word (eg NATO — nay-tow), non-acronyms can't (QED is not pronounced "ked").

Initialisms (iirc) are not really abbreviations. The Long List of Abbreviations — TLLA would not be really what I’d call an abbreviation. [[User:Anárion|Missing image
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]

] 07:43, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but I was suggesting the reverse - are all acronyms abbreviations? zoney ███ talk 12:38, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sure all acronyms are abbreviations

Great work, Zoney, thanks a lot! It looks like a proper article now. I have always assumed abbreviation was the master category, and acronyms and initialisms subsets of it, on a common-sense basis: "abbreviation" means shortening or brief-making, and acronyms and initialisms are methods for shortening. If I'm right, then all acronyms are abbreviations (though I don't suppose anybody believes all abbreviations are acronyms). But, Anárion, if you're heavily into linguistic terminology there, I'll defer to you, because I'm not - as I say, I only make a common-sense argument.

Looking up the entry on abbreviation in modern Encyclopedia Britannica, I note a couple of points:

1. A third method for producing abbrevations is by truncation, e. g. Mets for Metropolitans. Apocopation, linked to under See also, looks a lot like it means the exact same thing, doesn't it? Anyway, truncation has to be about fifty times more likely to be searched for than apocopation, and a Wikipedia Truncation article only exists for math, so if I have some time later, I'll try to create a Truncation (lingustics) stub and a disambig Truncation page.

2. Not everybody agrees with Herbee above that unit symbols like km are not abbreviations. It's OK to call them abbreviations (though it's also OK to refuse to). Anyway, thanks very much both of you for responding to my VP appeal for input.Bishonen 12:43, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

All three

Sorry! Thanks all three of you, was what I meant. Bishonen 12:48, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Abbreviation

I understand that I'm supposed to discuss a specific article on its Talk page, but I just haven't had any success with the Abbreviation article. I left a note on the Talk page six days ago, with suggestions for deleting most of the 1911 Britannica material, but haven't had any response so far. (I guess nobody's watching the page. Well, it's not John Kerry.) I don't feel right about deleting all that stuff without input from anybody else. Does anybody have a soft spot for abbreviations out there? Incidentally, if you do, and know more linguistics than me, which wouldn't be hard, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a look at my HomO article. I wrote it mostly because the word (the short form for the Swedish ombudsman against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation) is a cool, and to me amusing, uh, fake abbreviation. Well, maybe you had to be there. But, anyway, I don't think I do justice to the word itself in the article about the institution, and any input would be appreciated. If you think this posting is inappropriate, please tell me so, that would also be useful. Bishonen 16:55, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well bringing it here is likely to garner the article some attention so hopefully that helps (its not my field, unfortunately). Wikipedia works on a system of massive numbers of incremental improvements. If no-one other than you is currently interested in an article, you have carte blanche to your best in improving it, doing whatever you think is right. Maybe you can't make it perfect, but it will be in a better state for the next person who comes along. Pcb21| Pete 19:59, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Be bold. Discussing a major change on the talk page is only a courtesy to people who care about the article, and those people would be watching. Also, all changes are reversible, so if someone comes back from vacation and finds their page "devastated", they'll revert and flame you then. I for one favour your suggestion, but I might suggest moving them to a list of "archaic abbreviations." Derrick Coetzee 20:59, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the lists - they were too long to keep inline in the page. I've also added sections. The article actually looks sensible and nice now. Not sure what to do about current examples, does list of acronyms and initialisms cover this (I suspect the line is blurred). Discuss on Talk:Abbreviation. zoney ███ talk 01:29, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not all abbreviations are acronyms: acronyms can be pronounced as if they were a word. NATO is an acronym, QED is not. [[User:Anárion|Missing image
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]

] 07:38, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Untrue. According to Merriam-Webster's Online, 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; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters". QED is an acronym in the second sense (and even the first, depending on how you define "word"). Wikipedia's own article on acronyms is even clearer on this point. The essential difference is that NATO is pronounced "NAY-toe", whereas "QED" is pronounced "KYOO EE DEE". — Jeff Q 09:45, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nope - by any definition QED is not an acronym - it is always spelled out and never pronounced kwed. --JohnArmagh 10:01, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

But all acronyms are abbreviations? I.e. are acronyms a subset of abbreviations? Are initialisms also abbreviations? zoney ███ talk 12:23, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"By any definition?" Clearly, by at least one definition—the one Jeff cites above—it is indeed one. The artificial acronym/initialism distinction has always irked me, and I suppose you're going to be chiding me for splitting infinitives next. Austin Hair 12:51, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. QED is not an acronym, since it is not pronounced as a word, but as three individual letters. All acronyms are abbreviations, yes.

From the OED: "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)."

Sounds fairly unequivocable. -- Necrothesp 13:00, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What does "unequivocable" mean, exactly? It's certainly not unequivocal; few dictionaries even note the distinction, and those that do are quick to point out that it hasn't gained widespread acceptance—and rightly so, given its artificiality. Educated commentators are quick to disavow this "correction" right along with the prohibition against the split infinitive (mentioned above), the ending of a sentence with a preposition, the beginning of a sentence with a conjunction, and numerous other non-errors which have no place in this encyclopedia. Austin Hair 03:57, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Zoney is quite correct - just as not all 'pronounceable' abbreviations are acronyms, not all acronyms are abbreviations. --JohnArmagh 05:21, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Link suggestions

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