Gah...not this discussion again... Acronyms are a subset of abbreviations. All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms.
Now, once it comes to defining what an acronym is, there's cultural/regional differences as well: some argue that acronyms need to be pronounceable, others say that any initialism is also an acronym (where again others argue that initialisms are only a subset of acronyms)... The fact that acronyms are on their way out in xhtml2.0, coupled with the fact that it's futile - in my mind anyway - to argue vehemently over semantics down to this level, considering that HTML itself has such a kludgey, ambiguous and incomplete set of tags anyway (consider DL for instance), would suggest to just forget about it. One man's acronym is another man's abbreviation (but not the other way around). Every acronym could also be marked up as an abbreviation, without losing too much semantic weight... (but yes, of course, IE's lack of real support for abbr is a problem in this case) Patrick ________________________________ Patrick H. Lauke Webmaster / University of Salford http://www.salford.ac.uk > -----Original Message----- > From: Justin French > Sent: 22 July 2004 14:09 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [WSG] Titles Acronyms Abbr etc > > > On 21/07/2004, at 4:10 PM, Bert Doorn wrote: > > > G'day > > > >> Looks distinctly like a case of totally unnecessary to me > but we have > >> a difference of opinion in the office... > > > > Even if it was written as VDS, it would be an abbr(eviation): <abbr > > title="Vent Door Systems">VDS</abbr> > > Actually, VDS is an acronym of Vent Door Systems, not an abbreviation. > > --- > Justin French > http://indent.com.au > > ***************************************************** > The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ > See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > for some hints on posting to the list & getting help > ***************************************************** > > ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help *****************************************************
