Acronym vs. Abbreviation (and is HTTP a word?)

[miltownkid]

@Bu Lai En

Your dictionary defintion is vague. Did it have examples. My Oxford defintion is the same, but all the examples are pronouncable (and not just by reading out the letters).

I know it’s vague. Every definition I’ve seen is vague and that’s the problem. Why is it EVERY person I ask says html and other such words are acronyms? The definition I posted had examples, but the examples don’t rule out the use of html (I’ll just stick with that for now). I said find a definition YOU like (from a serious source of course) if you didn’t like my Oxford definition.

I’ve already admitted I understand where your camp is coming from, but the opposite camp seems fixed on being correct, so let me map it out.

First what is an acronym (a new fresh definition for ya)?

@Dictionary.com

A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women’s Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as radar for radio detecting and ranging.

Definition of html:

@Dictionary.com

noun A markup language used to structure text and multimedia documents and to set up hypertext links between documents, used extensively on the World Wide Web.

And all us nerds know html was made up from Hypertext Mark-up Language. And a noun is definitely a word…

So it is a WORD formed by combining initial letters of a series of words.

Textbook definition of acronym (I think it’s quite clear).

And, if I wanted to get even more technical, I could show you how and why LOL and ROTFL are acronyms. I have yet to see a definition that says anything about it being pronouncable.

Besides me being technically correct, I’m also pretty sure I’m popularly correct. Only English snoots (no offense snoots) roll around thinking they’re all high and mighty because they know the difference between an acronym, truncation, initialism, etc.

[url=ABC's vs psuedo ABCs? - #6 by Bu_Lai_En Bu Lai En was once untainted[/url] by language police propaganda.