museum designations

[Sean Edwards]

For my tuppence-worth, this whole pronounability business is a red
herring. You can force pronunciations on most acronyms, eg NWMS
(North West Museums Service), invariably pronounced Newmz or similar.
Maybe this is because we are near to Wales, where a "w" is "oo" as in
cwm (apologies to any Welsh if I have this wrong).

There must be dozens of others. Where is the "u" in QANTAS ?
(pronounced Kwantas, isn't it?). Some have letters inserted (eg
first *and* second letter of a word) for pronouncability by the
originator; others are forced into a pronouncable word by the users.
You can't really draw the line. Call them all acronyms.

Sean


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sean.edwards at man.ac.uk
Sean R. Edwards BSc PhD, Keeper of Botany, The Manchester Museum,
Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

'phone: +44 (0)161-275-2671/2;        fax: +44 (0)161-275-2676
web: http://www.man.ac.uk/museum/
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