Re: OLoCA

Re: OLoCA

[Matthew Woehlke]

Dave Korn wrote:
> Uriel Apeiron wrote on 30 July 2008 20:23:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was poking around the Cygwin site and noticed the 'acronym' section.
>>  The section should be called 'abbreviations'.  Acronyms are a subset
>> of abbreviations that a person can say like a word, like squares are a
>> subset of rectangles.  All acronyms are abbreviations but not vice
>> versa.  CIA is an abbreviation, NASA is an acronym.

...and the first example wikipedia gives is Cee Ee Oh. I always thought 
an acronym was a series of letters that stood for something, and an 
abbreviation was e.g. "etc" (short for "et cetera"), i.e. usually a 
shortened form of a single word. Then there are "initialisms" which 
seems more accurate, but do the hippos really care either way?

(Sheesh, that last sentence makes me feel like I am writing one of the 
spam messages that looks like a lorem ipsum generator. And wtf is the 
point of those, anyway? I mean, they don't advertise anything or try to 
get me to do anything. Are they from hippos trying to write poetry, that 
feel the need to do the digital equivalent of walking down a hall, which 
is to say clog the network with mail floods whose digital girth 
resembles that of the physical (hippo) author? Will the number of 
occurrences of the word "hippo" in this message set off the spam 
detector? Do hippos even like spam or are the vegetarian? Is 
vegetarianism even relevant to whether or not someone likes spam?)

>   Embi, but yowtwit!

I think you meant YOWTWYTT? (s/wrote/typed/)

-- 
Matthew
ESNR: signal to noise ratio too low (try a mailer without disclaimers)

RE: OLoCA

[Dave Korn]

Matthew Woehlke wrote on 30 July 2008 23:50:

> Dave Korn wrote:
>> Uriel Apeiron wrote on 30 July 2008 20:23:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> I was poking around the Cygwin site and noticed the 'acronym' section.
>>>  The section should be called 'abbreviations'.  Acronyms are a subset
>>> of abbreviations that a person can say like a word, like squares are a
>>> subset of rectangles.  All acronyms are abbreviations but not vice
>>> versa.  CIA is an abbreviation, NASA is an acronym.
> 
> ...and the first example wikipedia 

Citing wikipedia as an authoritative source: one sip!

  *sip*

>>   Embi, but yowtwit!
> 
> I think you meant YOWTWYTT? (s/wrote/typed/)

  I woz triying to emfasize thee fonetick nachure of manee of thee
ackrownims :)


    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

RE: OLoCA

[Dave Korn]

Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) wrote on 31 July 2008 14:13:

> Dave Korn wrote on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 7:35 PM:
> 
>> Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) wrote on 31 July 2008 00:06:
>> 
>>>   - Note: NIAID is an acronym for the National Institute of Allergy
>>> and Infectious Diseases (part of the National Institutes of Health).
>>> Note that the article and prepositions were not included.  People who
>>> work here usually spell it out but often enough pronounce it as a
>>> word.  What we struggle with is whether to use the definite article
>>> with the acronym. Is it "NIAID is a component of NIH" or "The NIAID is
>>> a component of the NIH"?
>> 
>>   Surely Sir Knee-Aid was one of the Knights who say 'NIH'?
> 
> A common mistake.  The knights said "NI"
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_who_say_Ni>.  "NIH" differs with
> its terminal aspiration.  

  Oh, I thought it was just the American-English spelling and the 'H' was
elided.

  Obviously I wouldn't have made this mistake if you had sent your first
email with an x-audio mime type....

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

RE: OLoCA

[Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]]

Dave Korn wrote on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 7:35 PM:

> Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) wrote on 31 July 2008 00:06:
> 
>>   - Note: NIAID is an acronym for the National Institute of Allergy
>> and Infectious Diseases (part of the National Institutes of Health).
>> Note that the article and prepositions were not included.  People who
>> work here usually spell it out but often enough pronounce it as a
>> word.  What we struggle with is whether to use the definite article
>> with the acronym. Is it "NIAID is a component of NIH" or "The NIAID
>> is a component of the 
>> NIH"?
> 
>   Surely Sir Knee-Aid was one of the Knights who say 'NIH'?

A common mistake.  The knights said "NI" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_who_say_Ni>.  "NIH" differs with its terminal aspiration.

One little-known aspect of NIAID's mission is NI-AID -- giving AID to knights and others who say NI.

- Barry
  -  Disclaimer:  Statements made herein are not made on behalf of NIAID, nor of anyone, noble or commoner, who says Ni!.
  -  If you believe you received this e-mail in error, you are probably sadly mistaken, but if not, aren't you lucky?
  -  Sending this e-mail does not constitute endorsement of the contents; I may change my mind later.
  -  This e-mail may have been sent in haste; if any of its contents are offensive, inappropriate, inaccurate, ungrammatical, misspelled, or incomplete, too bad.
  -  Ideas in this e-mail are bigger than they appear and the writer may be smarter than he appears.