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#15349 01/12/01 12:46 AM
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Hyla asked different languages form acronyms - any experience people have in other languages with this?

I remember being surprised when I finally learned, in my early twenties that the "Alfa" in "Alfa Romeo" is an acronym. Since my Italian is worse than my English, I'll leave to it Emanuela to give the deails.




#15350 01/12/01 01:27 AM
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MaxQ contributes: "scuzzie" for SCSI

PCMCIA is, I believe, normally pronounced pee-cee-em-cee-aye-ay, but where I work we had a period when we were pronouncing it pick-mick-ee-uh. We still do occasionally. In a similar vein, ASCII is pronounced ass-key.


#15351 01/12/01 02:00 AM
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Faldage offered In a similar vein, ASCII is pronounced ass-key.

But of course. How else would one say it? What, though, should one call such adaptations?


#15352 01/12/01 02:16 PM
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My favorite IT acronym is TWAIN--many of you with scanners will might have come accross TWAIN--
which is short for Technology Without Any Interesting Name.


#15353 01/12/01 03:21 PM
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I especially like NOAA (pronounced Noah like the ark builder) for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Pretty and particularly apt I would say.
wow


#15354 01/12/01 03:29 PM
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Acronyms in other languages
Italians are fond of acronyms, especially in regard to govenment & politics. I subscribe to a newsletter in Italian which comes on the net daily and am often at sea because of the acronyms for political parties (of which the Italians have a large supply) and govt. agencies (even larger supply). Many of these do not appear to be pronouncible, but I know that they are pronounced as words, not as a string of letters.


#15355 01/12/01 03:33 PM
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Not sure about the Alfa, but Fiat stands for (oh I hope I have this right) something like Federazion International Automobile Tourino. It had never dawned on me that it was an acronym, since it was commonly spelled Fiat instead of FIAT. In looking at the words for FIAT I know they aren't right, but it's something like that.



TEd
#15356 01/12/01 04:12 PM
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She of the profession that launched a thousand acronyms proclaims: My favorite IT acronym is TWAIN--many of you with scanners will might have come accross TWAIN--
which is short for Technology Without Any Interesting Name.


My favourite has been and remains WYSIWYG, pronounced "wizeewig". "What You See Is What You Get". I sometimes think it's IT's only meaningful contribution to the language.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#15357 01/12/01 05:49 PM
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CapK plagiaristically opined My favourite has been and remains WYSIWYG, pronounced "wizeewig". "What You See Is What You Get". I sometimes think it's IT's only meaningful contribution to the language.

[petulant harumphing emoticon] Yes, and meanwhile, my little foray into TEd's pundom with WYSIWYG has gone completely unremarked upon. And this after publicly exposing myself simply to offer you a palliative - what a disgraceful injustice!


#15358 01/12/01 06:03 PM
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Regarding my comment on the pronounciation of ASCII, MaxQ ponders: "But of course. How else would one say it?

It's the question of a C before an I which should be prononuced as an S, giving us ass-see or ass-eye.

Another problem I run into when I am wearing my proofreader's hat is whether a pronounceable abbreviation is pronounced as a word or with its letters when the initial letter is one in which is pronounced with a vowel sound but represents a consonant sound, e.g., HID (Human Interface Device). I'll see that in an engineer's report as a HID or an HID, sometimes both ways in the same engineer's report. That means I have to track down a representative cross section of engineers to tell me whether it's pronounced [hid] or [aitch-eye-dee]


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