Apronyms > Apronym Discussion

"Real" acronyms

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Edwin Hermann:
I reckon only "real" acronyms should be accepted.

By that I mean acronyms without the 'extra' words beginning with letters which don't appear in the word being acronymised.

For example, words like HABIT (Have A Big Interest in Tobacco?).  Spot the extra word.  Yeah, that ugly 'in'.  Grrrrr!!!!  Yukky.

I'm going to protest.... allow only real acronyms please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edwin.

Angela Brett:
If I could be bothered, I'd add an option in the stack to show only 'real' or 'pure' acronyms... and if I could write CGIs, I'd add some kind of search facility to these web pages with that option. But for now, you'll just have to smile smugly and feel extra smart for having created only 'real' acronyms. ;)

Tony McCoy O'Grady:
While I am sympathetic to your plea, "real" acronyms have historically included (or even excluded) surplus words.

LASER omits the initials of both 'by' and 'of'!
Try getting your tongue around LABSEOR

RADAR includes the letter 'a' from the word "Radio"! RADAR looks better than RDAR

There will regularly be a need for surplus words to help with an expansion.

My preference is that expansions suit the word involved, and aren't just a collection of words which (almost?) make sense but don't tell one anything about the acronym-word.

Edwin Hermann:
Now that you *can* write CGIs, will you make this change?  Or must I return your forums to sorting by thread created date?? :-)


>>> On 07 July 2000 00:09:24 NZST, Angela Brett wrote:

If I could be bothered, I'd add an option in the stack to show only 'real' or 'pure' acronyms... and if I could write CGIs, I'd add some kind of search facility to these web pages with that option. But for now, you'll just have to smile smugly and feel extra smart for having created only 'real' acronyms. ;)

Angela Brett:
Darn, my blackmailing techniques are backfiring. I  was actually working on the CGIs just moments ago, although not on that particular function.

At the moment, I'm concentrating on getting all the CGIs aware of the acronym categories - so that whenever an acronym is shown by a CGI there will be links to the acronym's category. I also want the search facility to be able to search the category names as well as the acronyms themselves.

When I've done that, I will add an option to search only 'pure' acronyms. Ooh, and if you'd kindly tell me how to get a C CGI to send an email, I might even add an acronym submission page. I've already written C code for checking an acronym's validity, for the Mac OS X stack-embryo, so it wouldn't be too difficult. Mind you, if people want to submit acronyms via the web it's probably best if they stick to using the forums. Maybe I should just write a CGI that will check an acronym's validity. In fact, that CGI could even rate the 'purity' of a valid acronym, based on the number of uncapitalised words. Maybe I should stop typing this rubbish and go back to actually improving the CGIs, like I was doing before.

By the way, has looking at the message list for this thread made you realise that perhaps, when the post is not from the current year, the year should be displayed in the message list? Hmm, I guess I've used up my bargaining power really, I wouldn't want the threads back to the old sorting method.

Gosh, making dynamic websites is fun. Hey Ed, is Hangman still around? Where did it go?

>>> On 06 August 2001 09:41:02 UTC, Edwin Hermann wrote:

Now that you *can* write CGIs, will you make this change?  Or must I return your forums to sorting by thread created date?? :-)

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