David Latapie asked: > Why do you use both <span class="ex-acronym"> and <abbr > class="acronym">?
Because some words (usually names of organizations) begin as abbreviations and become ex-abbreviations. That is, they officially cease to stand for anything but are still written and pronounced as before. What it stood for becomes of purely etymological interest. CERN appears to be one of these: "CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The name CERN is derived from the French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, or European Council for Nuclear Research ... When the Organization officially came into being in 1954, the Council was dissolved, and the new organization was given the title European Organization for Nuclear Research, although the name CERN was retained." http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/WhatIsCERN/CERNName/CERNName-en.html On further investigation, looks like "orphan-acronym" would have been a more recognizable class name. Other examples of "orphaned" abbreviations include KFC, ESPN, AAA, AARP, UMIST, Texas A&M, SRI, SAT. For discussion, see: http://www.slate.com/id/2099747/ http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003555.html There's even a relevant Wikipedia category: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Orphan_initialisms > The only thing for sure is that there is a strong disagreement on the > terminology. Yes. It's difficult. :( -- Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
