<abbr> and <acronym>

[Marcus Stollsteimer]

RADAR is also a palindrome

I think we need a <palindrome> element

Regards,
Marcus

 

[Blinky the Shark]

I think we need a <palindrome> element

It's on back order, with the <haiku> element.

 

[Marcus Stollsteimer]

1. how should these elements be best used (and what is a good reason
for using them in the first place)?

You've not told us what qualifications you would apply to consider
something a "good" reason. The basic reason to use most markup is to
apply structure and semantics to the content. In that sense
abbreviations and acronyms are no different from headings and
paragraphs.

Things get shady when you start looking for real world practical
benefits. Some speech renderers can be configured to read out title
content for abbreviations and acronyms, but as you can imagine that
becomes a pain if the abbreviation is used more than once and title
content is provided every time.

Ok, I didn't think of speech renderers, that of course is some reason.

AT speech renderers use built in lists of commonly used
abbreviations and render them in a pre configured way, some are
spelled out, others are expanded, regardless of whether the
abbreviation is marked up or naked.

That's exactly what I would expect of such a program, it should know
how to pronounce "USA", "NATO" or "e.g.".

How would you know? whether or not *you* know the meaning of an
abbreviation doesn't mean that a visitor will know.

Of course he might be a German who does not know half of the words on
the page... No, I think it is reasonable to assume that the visitor
knows at least abbreviations like the above examples. Or should I

2. what is the difference between them (or: why not always use
<abbr>)?

IIRC the XHTML 2 proposals have dropped the <acronym> element
because of the reasoning you mentioned elsewhere in the thread: that
acronyms are a special form of abbreviations.[/QUOTE]

that's interesting


Hi Spartanicus, thanks for your answer!

I did not consider speech renderers, that might be some argument for
using <abbr> and <acronym>. But I still am not convinced of the
usefulness of these elements:

- imo, a good speech program should know how to pronounce acronyms
(like any other word in the text). And reading out the title
attribute seems as annoying as using the expanded form in the text.
When the acronym is used in the text, it should also be pronounced in
the abbreviated form.

- a lot of browsers seem to ignore these elements anyway

- in case there is a title attribute, I still have to hit the acronym
with my mouse pointer (if I have a mouse pointer)

- they are completely useless for text browsers and printed documents
(the nice dotted line tells me it's an acronym, but I can see that
for myself)

Regards,
Marcus

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

(and deleted where I had said

|| There *are* other solutions, after all.

It is not wise to ignore the elephant in the living room.

Who said I intended to "ignore" it? I'd treat it with the respect
that it seems to deserve.

On the one hand, I would be perfectly entitled to conclude that if IE
doesn't want to take any particular action on <abbr> , then it's
entitled to do so, and why should I worry? I wouldn't classify that
as "ignoring" IE - but as having shown IE at least as much
consideration as it has earned, and then taking an appropriate
authoring decision...

On the other hand, if I wanted to give an impression of working in IE,
it's feasible to code e.g:

<span class="abbr" ...><abbr ...>Abbr.</abbr></span>

filling-in the ellipsis with whatever you wanted (title="...",
onmouseover, whatever appeals to you), and supplying appropriate CSS
properties for both selectors (abbr, span.abbr).

One could write an editor macro to generate that, or, if you like
generating your (X)HTML using an XML-based process, go right ahead.

At least that way you wouldn't be telling lies (sc. marking-up a
non-acronym as <acronym>) to the www-compatible browsers.

 

[Spartanicus]

so what about <noun>, <verb>, <number>, <palindrome> etc. These would
also help in clarifying the semantics.

The point I was trying to make is that you shouldn't be to eager to
deviate from the "markup content for what it is" rule of thumb. Having
said that, the real world quality of markup can be improved by deviating
from that rule of thumb in some cases.

I presume that <abbr> and <acronym> are part of HTML4 because at the
time it was thought that they could provide a useful purpose, whereas
<noun>, <verb>, <number> and <palindrome> are afaics either useless or
harmful.

The case for the usefulness of <abbr> and <acronym> is imo at least
rather questionable, and in some cases their use can cause problems in
practice. IIRC "<acronym>HTML</acronym>." is read out as "HTML dot" by
(a) certain speech browser(s), whereas "HTML." is pronounced as "HTML".

 

[Marcus Stollsteimer]

The point I was trying to make is that you shouldn't be to eager to
deviate from the "markup content for what it is" rule of thumb.
Having said that, the real world quality of markup can be improved
by deviating from that rule of thumb in some cases.

I presume that <abbr> and <acronym> are part of HTML4 because at the
time it was thought that they could provide a useful purpose,
whereas <noun>, <verb>, <number> and <palindrome> are afaics either
useless or harmful.

The case for the usefulness of <abbr> and <acronym> is imo at least
rather questionable, and in some cases their use can cause problems
in practice. IIRC "<acronym>HTML</acronym>." is read out as "HTML
dot" by (a) certain speech browser(s), whereas "HTML." is pronounced
as "HTML".

I think we agree here: an HTML element just for the sake of semantics
makes no sense, it has to serve some purpose. Does <abbr> fulfill
this condition? I'm not sure.

Regards,
Marcus

 

[Jim Moe]

(and deleted where I had said

|| There *are* other solutions, after all.

<span class="abbr" ...><abbr ...>Abbr.</abbr></span>

Yes, I guessed it would something like that. And I have considered doing so.
I decided against it since clutters the HTML with an undesirable workaround.
<Rationalization>
And, I am not exactly lying about abbr vs. acronym. I am simply imbuing
abbr with a characteristic it does not have, that is, its usage as a word
rather than a just a shorthand clump of letters. E.g. USB (ewe ess bee)
vs. RADAR (raydahr).
Or I could say that <abbr> is a subset of <acronym>.
</Rationalization>
Of course, I could have taken your other suggestion of preprocessing
(e.g.: XML/XSLT, ppwizard, PHP) to generate a page. It would conditionally
replace all <abbr> with <acronym>, or the more complex <span> wrapper
above, until the day when pre-IE7 (presuming IE7 will support <abbr>)
browsers are no longer worth considering.
Basically, though, I am just lazy.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Jim Moe quothed:

Or I could say that <abbr> is a subset of <acronym>.

Of course, I could have taken your other suggestion of preprocessing
(e.g.: XML/XSLT, ppwizard, PHP) to generate a page. It would conditionally
replace all <abbr> with <acronym>, or the more complex <span> wrapper
above, until the day when pre-IE7 (presuming IE7 will support <abbr>)
browsers are no longer worth considering.

I like <dfn>, which I think somebody suggested.

 

[Jim Moe]

<acronym> is a subset of <abbr>.

I read that in another post as well. I don't see it. Convince me otherwise.

Abbreviation: A shortened form of a word or phrase used chiefly in
writing to represent the complete form (Mass., USB).
Acronym: A word formed from the initial letters of a name, or by
combining initial letters or parts of a series of words (RADAR, SCSI).

The primary difference is that an acronym is pronounced as a word so it
has the extra semantic "value" not in an abbreviation.

I like <dfn>, which I think somebody suggested.

Works for me.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Jim Moe quothed:

I read that in another post as well. I don't see it. Convince me otherwise.

Abbreviation: A shortened form of a word or phrase used chiefly in
writing to represent the complete form (Mass., USB).
Acronym: A word formed from the initial letters of a name, or by
combining initial letters or parts of a series of words (RADAR, SCSI).

The primary difference is that an acronym is pronounced as a word so it
has the extra semantic "value" not in an abbreviation.

I agree with the above but I think we're talking about 2 different kinds
of "semantic" here. However, aurally, there is a distinction so my
initial belief that <acronym> was useless has changed a bit. But it's
still an abbreviation and the distinction could probably made within
that designation.

 

[Frank Olieu]

<snip> (presuming IE7 will support <abbr>) <snip>

Well, IE7 beta2 *does* already...

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

1. how should these elements be best used

Meta-answers:
a) don't use pronouns that refer to the Subject line; the content of
your message should work as standalone
b) do some search on past discussions on these topics; and go back
in time far enough, since every new round seems to be less useful
than its predecessor.

Short answer:
Don't use them.

2. what is the difference between them (or: why not always use
<abbr>)?

Short answer:
Politics. And it doesn't matter; just don't use either of them.

 

[Andrey Tarasevich]

"radar" is not an acronym.

Radar IS an acronym.

 

[Andrey Tarasevich]

I read that in another post as well. I don't see it. Convince me otherwise.

Abbreviation: A shortened form of a word or phrase used chiefly in
writing to represent the complete form (Mass., USB).
Acronym: A word formed from the initial letters of a name, or by
combining initial letters or parts of a series of words (RADAR, SCSI).

The primary difference is that an acronym is pronounced as a word so it
has the extra semantic "value" not in an abbreviation.

No. USB is also an acronym and it is not pronounced as a word, while
pronouncing SCSI as a word is entirely optional.

Once again, acronym, by definition, is just a particular form of
abbreviation.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

That was indeed the purpose for which the term "acronym" was
originally coined. MEU2 (Fowler ed. Gowers) was in no doubt
about that. A pity that those formulating the examples in the HTML4
specification preferred not to consult respectable sources of English
usage - but, it seems, tossed in their own street usage instead.

No. USB is also an acronym

USB is an abbreviation; and it's also an initialism, if you want a
more specific term to differentiate it from other kinds of
abbreviation.

There's been a tendency in recent decades (as indeed exemplified by
some of those examples in the HTML4 spec) to waste the term "acronym"
by applying it variously to initialisms and other kinds of
abbreviation, meaning that we soon will have no word left to mean what
the term "acronym" was originally coined to mean; instead, we'll have
three words which all mean pretty much the same thing. Which seems
rather a pity.

and it is not pronounced as a word,

Which rules it out as an "acronym" in the respectable sense of that
term.

Once again, acronym, by definition, is just a particular form of
abbreviation.

Ah, but *which* particular form? Once again: an initialism is also a
particular form of abbreviation, but an initialism is not necessarily
an acronym ("radar" is - whereas, whatever nonsense the HTML4 spec
purveys at this point, "F.B.I." surely is not).

But now that the term has been so wasted, it's worthless in HTML,
since the original hope to use it as a pronunciation clue has proved
non-viable. And indeed the XHTML2 draft has evidently abandoned it.

 

[Jose]

Ah, but *which* particular form?

What difference does it make? This is a serious question - given that
speech readers should already know how to pronounce non-words, what is
the point of telling your interface what =kind= of abbreviation
something is?

How would RADAR, Mr., and SCSI be treated differently by software that
knows exactly what kind of abbreviation it is? (especially considering
that many =people= don't know and get along fine.)

Jose

 

[dorayme]

Radar IS an acronym.

Quite right to give me this blunt retort, no less than I deserve!
I should have added something, of course.

I was thinking it has its origin in an acronym but is now an
ordinary English word. There would be other words that have
passed into English that are no longer what they were. But I am
not an expert in these things. It would not take much to make me
recant. But I would like to see a good argument. Perhaps it both
is and is not, there being a basic uncertainty in these matters,
especially when the word is used without periods, in lower case,
the original expansion of the initialisation mostly forgotten by
even educated folk who know well enough what the word means
without the technical details.

 

[Jake]

In message

Quite right to give me this blunt retort, no less than I deserve!
I should have added something, of course.

I was thinking it has its origin in an acronym but is now an
ordinary English word. There would be other words that have
passed into English that are no longer what they were. But I am
not an expert in these things. It would not take much to make me
recant. But I would like to see a good argument. Perhaps it both
is and is not, there being a basic uncertainty in these matters,
especially when the word is used without periods, in lower case,
the original expansion of the initialisation mostly forgotten by
even educated folk who know well enough what the word means
without the technical details.

I would suggest that 'RADAR' is an acronym -- and 'radar' isn't.

As you say, 'radar' has now passed into the English language as a word
in it's own right. After all, we now say/write 'fax' and not 'facsimile
machine', 'email' and not 'electronic mail', etc. do we not?

Still, what do I know about these things? ;-)


regards,

 

[Marcus Stollsteimer]

1. how should these elements be best used

[snip]

b) do some search on past discussions on these topics; and go back
in time far enough, since every new round seems to be less useful
than its predecessor.

seems I have to go way back, judging from this thread:
2 helpful replies and about 30 useless...

Short answer:
Don't use them.

ok

Regards,
Marcus

 

[dorayme]

I was thinking it has its origin in an acronym but is now an
ordinary English word. There would be other words that have
passed into English that are no longer what they were. But I am
not an expert in these things. It would not take much to make me
recant. But I would like to see a good argument. Perhaps it both
is and is not, there being a basic uncertainty in these matters,
especially when the word is used without periods, in lower case,
the original expansion of the initialisation mostly forgotten by
even educated folk who know well enough what the word means
without the technical details.

[/QUOTE]

I would suggest that 'RADAR' is an acronym -- and 'radar' isn't.

Well, fair enough, but how can we decide such things? No one much
uses "RADAR" except for when it is in a heading and all or many
of the key words or important words are capitalised and that is
not generally for reasons to indicate some special thing that is
being meant, it is just "radar" in capitals. When folk say or
write this word, it is just, by now, an English word meaning
devices and beams for detecting ....

(German submarines that are about to blow up Allied shipping...?
- or as in the marvellous Das Boot, roughly other way around...
Er, maybe that is going too far or is a bit in the past... but
the movies are still playing... better not go on or BdeZ will
increase my killfile time even further... (Can one be good inside
a kf and earn parole or something?)