museum designations

[Gary Rosenberg]

For those who want to use restrictive definitions, abbreviations based on
the initial letters of words are called

acronyms, if pronounced as words;
initialisms, if pronounced as letters.

However, both of these terms have broader, or at least conflicting,
definitions depending on which dictionary one uses. I have seen only one
dictionary (of six) that includes "pronounceable" in its definition of
"acronym" [Collins English Dictionary, 1986]. Most dictionaries include
"word" in the definition of "acronym", which implies pronounciation as word.

The Oxford English Dictionary (ed. 2, 1989) gives the most useful pair of
definitions:

acronym. A word formed from the initial letters of other words. [First
record, 1943]

initialism. "The use of initials; a significative group of initial letters.
Now spec. a group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or
expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately (contrasted with
acronym)." [First record, 1899.]

Since any initialism can be pronounced as a word if desired (as others in
this thread have noted), e.g. SPNHC (Spinach), Society for the Preservation
of Natural History Collections, the distinction between acronyms and
initialisms is fluid.

"Coden" seems to me a perfectly acceptable "word" for this type of
abbreviation. It is also used for abbreviations of titles of journals, e.g.,
http://www.oclc.org/oclc/bib/030.htm
http://cobweb.nal.usda.gov/ag98/catalog/1230.html
http://www.tlcdelivers.com/tlc/crs/hold0803.htm

Codens can contain numbers, so they are a broader category than just the
union of acronyms and initialisms. A yet broader category is "codes", such
as airport codes <http://www.cowtown.net/users/rcr/aaa/ccmain.htm> which can
be entirely numberic (zip codes, area codes), or alphanumeric (postal codes).


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Gary Rosenberg, Ph.D.                     rosenberg at acnatsci.org
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