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As long as we are going to entertain off topic, how about this.

I common figure of speech in English is the use of "Try and" where the meaning is "Try to". I.E. I'm going to try and drive my car backwards for three miles. When I see it, or hear it, I wonder, "Are they going to try the car, or are they going to drive the car?" Make up my mind!

On 07/16/2013 07:25 PM, Keith Bates wrote:
The base of the misunderstanding is the shift in meaning of the word
acronym over the last few decades. It used to mean an abbreviation which
formed a word- such as radar. Now it seems to be used more for an
abbreviation which is more familiar than the original terms. e.g. most
people know the BBC or the Beeb but fewer know it stands for British
Broadcasting Corporation. In my experience bureaucracies spawn all kinds
of meaningless terms which then get abbreviated-- these abbreviations
become known as acronyms because everyone knows what the FHSAP does but
nobody knows what the abbreviation stands for. (I just made that
abbreviation up- there probably is one somewhere in your local, state or
regional bureaucracy).

It's similar with the word electrocution which everyone over 50 knows is
a fatal electric shock. Everyone under 50 seems to use it as an
alternative to electric shock which leads to interesting phrases such as
"electrocuted to death" and "I've been electrocuted three times."

Life would be much simpler if they let the pedants run everything.

Keith

On 17/07/13 06:15, Felmon Davis wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jul 2013, Brian Barker wrote:

At 02:02 16/07/2013 -0400, Felmon Davis wrote:
On Sun, 14 Jul 2013, Doug wrote:
This is not an acronym. It can't be pronounced as a word. (See
dictionary definition in URL below.)

the definition says:
-----
 : a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter
or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a
compound term; [...]
-----

I'm missing the part about being pronounced as a word.

May I help?  I think I can.  It's right there in the second word of
the definition: it says it's a *word*, so it'll be pronounced as, er,
a word!

ah, now I see where that comes from!

deviates from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym> which counts the
following formations as acronyms:

    BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
    OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer
    USA: The United States of America
    FGM: Female Genital Mutilation

or maybe it doesn't deviate after all since they can also be
pronounced as words (any string of initials can).

I'm going to let Anne-ology make the call.

F.






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