Posted By blackburn49 on 01/14/2008 2:56 PM
Posted By TonyWalsham on 01/12/2008 4:25 PM
Mark,
You do know what an acronym is don't you?
Using the first letter of a number of words to form another word is only an acronym if the word so derived is actually pronounceable as a word. Such as with SCUBA.
MLS is not an acronym.
It is an initialism.
"Contrary to what some sources say, acronyms
do not have to be pronounceable words (for example FBI is spelled out when spoken, whereas NASA is not).
Some sources use the word initialism to refer to the spelled acronyms." (from
"The Internet Acronym Server"), the link being credited to Bob Sorenson in the previous post.
However, I do recall from my days in the military, that
all our acronyms were pronounceable (for good reason--we used them extensively in place of the spelled out version). The military, as you know,
loves acronymns.
--Ron in CC
Your right. The military is full of them. Any military I guess. This is especially the case in the ATC (Air Traffic Control) world. I made a concerted effort to cleans myself of these as soon as I retired but my wife did not. Fifteen years later she still drives me absolutely crazy when she talks to people she has just met. Blank looks all around and I'm trying to translate without making her, or the new guy, embarrassed.
Funny though. We used to say things were TU when they didn't work. I still use that at work from time to time - by mistake - and now people there are using it as well. 'course there is plenty of opportunity in that place..../DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/w00t.gif
Dave