LINGUIST List 4.493

Mon 21 Jun 1993

Disc: Acronyms

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1. "don l. f. nilsen", Re: 4.474 Qs: Acronyms, Phoneme Co-occurrences, Readability
2. Ken Miner, Re: 4.482 Qs: German, Tibetan & Chinese, Acronyms
3. Bruce Southard, 4.482 Qs: German, Tibetan & Chinese, Acronyms
4. John S. Coleman, 4.482 Qs: German, Tibetan & Chinese, Acronyms

Message 1: Re: 4.474 Qs: Acronyms, Phoneme Co-occurrences, Readability

Redundancies:
 Acronym redundancies are the result of not being consciously aware
that the last letter of the acronym is the same as the word being modified
by the acronym. The acronym obscures the meaning in the same way that
bilingualism can obscure the redundancy in such words as "Rio Salado River,"
"and etc." etc.
 A similar kind of redundancy can be seen throughout bilingual
(English-French) canada, where signs like "Bank Montreal Bank" are common.
I assume that French speakers are to leave off the last word "Bank Montreal,"
while English speakers are expected to leave off the first word
"Montreal Bank."
{^_^}
Don L. F. Nilsen |\/\/\/||
<ATDFNASUACAD.BITNET>, (602) 965-7592 | |
Executive Secretary | |
International Society for Humor Studies | (o)(o)
English Department | _)
Arizona State University | ,____|
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 | /
 |_____\
 | Anon \

Message 2: Re: 4.482 Qs: German, Tibetan & Chinese, Acronyms

 Re: acronym definition
 The point is well taken but if we take all the known possibilities into
 account we would need quite a lot of new terminology. Some languages are
 fond of creating pronouceable strings by concatenating the onset + nucleus
 of each syllable (Ge-sta-po) rather than just the onset. In the Hebrew
 tradition one takes the consonants and supplies the default vowel [a]:
 Rambam for Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides). I'm sure there are
 numerous other such practices.
 Ken Miner <minerkuhub.cc.ukans.edu>

In regard to acronyms which are pronounced as initials, e.g. AA, BTU, CIA, GOP,
 etc., John Algeo in his workbook _Problems in the Origins and Development of
the English Language_ differentiates between acronyms and "initialisms." Pyles
 does not include the term "initialism" in the text book which Algeo's workbook
 complements, so I assume that the term "initialism" originiated with Algeo. I
 don't know if the term is used by others, but it seems a good choice.
Regards,
Bruce Southard
English Department, East Carolina University
ensouthaecuvm1.bitnet

<frantznhg.uleth.ca> writes
> It has long bothered me that the term <acronym> is used not only for initials
> which form a pronounceable string like NATO, GAT, UNESCO, etc., but also for
> commonly repeated initials like PTA, TG, GB, etc.
Not when I was at school, it wasn't. NATO, GAT, UNESCO are acronyms,
PTA, TG, GB etc. are abbreviations, according to my dictionary.
--- John Coleman