Pedants' Paradise

[LeMartinPecheur]

No mystery.....
Just like WHO....no pronunciation as such, just one capital letter after another.....
There are many kinds of abbreviation which are not acronyms of course, like Dr or Prof etc....so the terminological application here is very flexible...

Initialism is another option if you so choose....

One could say that acronyms tend to contain vowels whilst initialisms might or might not, but that is the kind of linguistic distinction that soon dissolves away, evolving through continuous usage....and "abbreviation" becomes more of an umbrella term, really.

All acronyms are indeed abbreviations but as you say, not all abbreviations are acronyms. To be an acronym it has to be pronounceable as a word, hence my original facetious question. One definition, admittedly from a 1972 Chambers, 'a word formed from the initial letters of other words, as radar.' (Radar = Radio detection and ranging, so not perhaps such an elegant example as NATO, UNESCO and many others.) Sloppy use of acronym for a mere abbreviation, more and more common with journalists, does banish this pedant from paradise!

Have more modern dictionaries started to register the 'convergence of the twain' into synonyms, with of course the loss of a useful distinction for the purist? Why have two words meaning the same thing, though I guess use of the one with a Greek root does sound more educated

[jayne lee wilson]

All acronyms are indeed abbreviations but as you say, not all abbreviations are acronyms. To be an acronym it has to be pronounceable as a word, hence my original facetious question. One definition, admittedly from a 1972 Chambers, 'a word formed from the initial letters of other words, as radar.' (Radar = Radio detection and ranging, so not perhaps such an elegant example as NATO, UNESCO and many others.) Sloppy use of acronym for a mere abbreviation, more and more common with journalists, does banish this pedant from paradise!

Have more modern dictionaries started to register the 'convergence of the twain' into synonyms, with of course the loss of a useful distinction for the purist? Why have two words meaning the same thing, though I guess use of the one with a Greek root does sound more educated

The OED got that covered......

https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/1844;jsessionid=B2236508C2201583A8184899D6A8AE22

Click on "thesaurus" to see how far back they all go...........

If you look up the German "Akronym" you find your wiki-way here:

"From akro- (“tip, end, beginning”) + -onym (“name”). First attested in the early 1900s. The term was modelled after Homonym and Synonym, and the parts are ultimately derived from Ancient Greek ἄκρον (ákron, “end, extremity”) and ὄνυμα (ónuma, “name”)".

I wonder where and in what context the idea of it having to be a pronounceable word first arose? Such phenomena are evidently not godgiven, they usually arise from individualistic usage themselves.
The OED entry goes back to the 40s for this.
As I've said above, while interesting, I don't feel this is a terribly useful distinction really, which is why the various terms are becoming interchangeable, especially initialism and acronym as the OED suggests even as it makes the distinction......

[Petrushka]

All acronyms are indeed abbreviations but as you say, not all abbreviations are acronyms. To be an acronym it has to be pronounceable as a word, hence my original facetious question. One definition, admittedly from a 1972 Chambers, 'a word formed from the initial letters of other words, as radar.' (Radar = Radio detection and ranging, so not perhaps such an elegant example as NATO, UNESCO and many others.) Sloppy use of acronym for a mere abbreviation, more and more common with journalists, does banish this pedant from paradise!

Have more modern dictionaries started to register the 'convergence of the twain' into synonyms, with of course the loss of a useful distinction for the purist? Why have two words meaning the same thing, though I guess use of the one with a Greek root does sound more educated

Perhaps the posts from #51 onwards can be hived off to Pedants' Paradise and we can discuss the much less difficult matter of the 'best' Bruckner 6.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Perhaps the posts from #51 onwards can be hived off to Pedants' Paradise and we can discuss the much less difficult matter of the 'best' Bruckner 6.

[kernelbogey]

Bit of flak round here....

[vinteuil]

Bit of flak round here....

...ah, flak. Or as we used to call it F.L.A.K. - from FLugAbwehrKanone

an acronymous abbreviation

[kernelbogey]

an acronymous abbreviation

The Italians have a penchant for creating pronouncable abbreviations. FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is so common in many langages as to be scarecely noticable as an acronym. I used to travel on a bus company called SAD - Società Automobilistica Dolomiti; RAI - Radio televisione italiana. There are many Italian companies with acronymous names, though I can't atm recall others.

[Pulcinella]

The Italians have a penchant for creating pronouncable abbreviations. FIAT (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is so common in many langages as to be scarecely noticable as an acronym. I used to travel on a bus company called SAD - Società Automobilistica Dolomiti; RAI - Radio televisione italiana. There are many Italian companies with acronymous names, though I can't atm recall others.

We rather like their CONAD stores, though we tend to replace the C with a G when we think about shopping there!


Conad, stylized CONAD, is an Italian retail store brand which operates one of the largest supermarket chains in Italy. Created in 1962, Conad is a cooperative system of entrepreneurs, dealing in large-scale distribution. It is structured on three levels: entrepreneur members, cooperatives, and the national consortium.
Native name:
Consorzio Nazionale Dettaglianti

[gurnemanz]

If you look up the German "Akronym" you find your wiki-way here:

"From akro- (“tip, end, beginning”) + -onym (“name”). First attested in the early 1900s. The term was modelled after Homonym and Synonym, and the parts are ultimately derived from Ancient Greek ἄκρον (ákron, “end, extremity”) and ὄνυμα (ónuma, “name”)".

As well as the infamous Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), echoed in the DDR by Stasi (Staatssicherheit) there are quite a few more recent ones:

Haribo – Hans Riegel, Bonn
Adidas – Adolf Dassler

and of course ALDI - Albrecht Diskont

[vinteuil]

We rather like their CONAD stores, though we tend to replace the C with a G when we think about shopping there!

i

... you're not alone!

And the Spar shops - originally DESPAR from the Dutch Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig [Everyone works better together]


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[kernelbogey]

'Can you confim your address/date of birth/telephone number' a call-handler will ask as part of the 'security questions'.

When there has been no earlier statement of any one of these.

So, increasingly, confirm = 'state'.

And here's the Guardian today, reporting on the new Taylor Swift album: 'No personnel have been confirmed' - by which it clearly means 'announced'.

[Edit: OED definitions of current usages invariably imply some sense of strengthening a meaning, eg. 7a. To corroborate, or add support to (a statement, etc.); to make certain, verify, put beyond doubt.]

[Bryn]

'Can you confim your address/date of birth/telephone number' a call-handler will ask as part of the 'security questions'.

When there has been no earlier statement of any one of these.

So, increasingly, confirm = 'state'.

And here's the Guardain today, reporting on the new Taylor Swift album: 'No personnel have been confirmed' . . .

What, not even Taylor Swift herself?

[Pulcinella]

'Can you confim your address/date of birth/telephone number' a call-handler will ask as part of the 'security questions'.

When there has been no earlier statement of any one of these.

So, increasingly, confirm = 'state'.

That use doesn't worry me too much (though I sometimes want to ask the caller for THEIR equivalent details!) as I take it to mean 'confirm against the details we have on file'.

And here's the Guardain today, reporting on the new Taylor Swift album: 'No personnel have been confirmed' - by which it clearly means 'announced'.

But this is different: obviously the churches are failing in their duties!
Do you still need a confirmation certificate to get married in certain churches (CofE, RC)?

[kernelbogey]

But this is different: obviously the churches are failing in their duties

Notwithstanding that it will have been recorded somewhere in the 'Bible Belt'!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Bit of flak round here....

Do I get any support among fellow pedants on holding that 'proper' (oops!) UK usage still reserves 'acronym' for a pronounceable word, and should continue to preserve a useful distinction? Its inclusion of -nym. name, should be respected.

JLW's link to the online OED shows its employment for a mere set of initials originates in the USA - need I say more? My searches in more up-to-date proper-English dictionaries than Chambers '72 give no support at all this side the pond for the degraded US meaning, e.g. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dic...nglish/acronym