mxh178: okay... well I don't think it's uncommon to pronounce
abbreviations which are easy to pronounce, like ones with alternating consonants and vowels, whether or not they are intended to be
acronyms is that better?
not that there is any agreement over the difference between acronyms and abbreviations hedwards: Strictly speaking, that's because people don't really care enough to know about the differences. You see that sort of linguistic drift all over the place. I'm tempted to say it's more common now than it used to be, but it's probably always been there at a similar rate since dictionaries rose to prominence in the 19th century.
It's not something that really matters, but anybody who is using acronym for something which hasn't become a word is doing it wrong.
[EDIT] : Big whoops => i quoted te wrong post, and the post I actually quoted partially holds the answers I sought. Sorry for bad reading and potential off topic. [/EDIT]
I wanted to clarify a point of vocabulary until I read hedwards post. However it 'poped' a question in my head :
In french, the distinction between what we cal 'acronyme' and 'sigle' is pretty clear. As it was said, the word 'radar' is a noun created from the initials of the device in question, aka it's an acronym. On the other hand, HDMI, FTP and such are just initials (that's what we call a 'sigle' in french .... there may be another name for those things but I always heard this one).
All my ramblings are just a 'translation' of hedwards words. SO, the question I was asking myself is 'Is there a clear distinction in english between the two notions ? Do you commonly use the term 'initials' when talking about HDMI, CIA, FBI and such ?'
I did some quick research on websites I usually visit when language issues haunt me ... but so far I didn't find anything convincing.
Google translates 'sigle' (fr) into 'acronym' (en) ... :/
