gmnh IS NOT AN ACRONYM

[Karstad-Schueler]

John Bruner wrote:
>
> On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Liz McGhee wrote:

> >I am looking for a museum with the acronym gmnh.  Is anyone
> > familiar with this?  Thanks.

> Dear Liz McGhee:
>
>  "GMNH" is an abbreviation NOT an acronym.
>

* This came up before, eh? In one school of 'thought' Museum 'acronyms'
are not abbreviations, in the sense of just representing the words they
abbreviate: they're standardized symbols that stand for the institution
or collection. Many aren't pronounced as words, but they serve the same
unitary symbolic purpose as words.

Francis Cook comments: "I spoke to Peter Frank and Nancy Bowles in CMN
registration about this. Peter also understands an acronym is somthing
you can pronounce (like SNAFU, COSEWIC?) and an abbreviation is just
letters but not pronouncable (CMN, NMC). My Oxford Concise says: "ACRONYM
n. word formed from the initial letters of other words (and gives UNESCO,
etc) John Bruner and Peter are then technically correct if only
pronouncable combinations are words (an interesting point comes up: can
not some scientific names legally be just arbitary combinations of
letters - If so then names do not necessarily have to be pronouncable.
Are these then not words?)

"ABBREVIATE is simply to "make short" so presumably does not necessarily
involve first letters only. Abbreviation is any shortened form. I would
personally call Can. Mus. Nat. an abbreviation and CMN an unpronouncable
acronym.  If Copeia uses "acronym" three times a year in the broader
sense (including both pronouncable and unpronouncable) then THIS IS BY
DEFINITION CURRENT USAGE. If it continues future dictionaries will
recognize it. As far as I am concerned if COSEWIC is an acronym, CMC and
EOBM are acronyms, regardless of being able to pronounce them"

fred schueler.

p.s. for noncanadians, CMN=Canadian Museum of Nature, the former
NMC=National Museum(s) of Canada (in part), COSEWIC=Committee on the
Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.
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         Eastern    Ontario    Biodiversity    Museum
                Grenville Co, Ontario, Canada
(RR#2 Oxford Station, K0G 1T0) (613)258-3107   bckcdb at istar.ca
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