On Mon, 31 Jul 1995, John Bruner wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jul 1995, Peter Rauch wrote:
"...... A current, somewhat imperfect
system of similar nature is used by collections to identify the collection
and/or institution --the traditional acronym, e.g., amnh, fmnh, cas,
etc...." > Peter
SORRY PETER, I am not picking on you, but there seems to be an awful lot of
people on TAXACOM who do not know that the word "acronym" CANNOT be used
for museum abbreviations. An acronym is a WORD made up of the first
letter or several letters of a string of words. Examples of "acronyms"
are SNAFU, RADAR, SCUBA. Abbreviations or codons of museums are NOT acronyms
because they are not WORDS. The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's SVP
Bibliography has a section in the back of the last three issues which also
misuses the word "acronym." AMNH, FMNH, and CAS are not acronyms but
) codons or abbreviations for museums. Because these abbreviations are
) not WORDS on their own right they are not acronymns.
I am afraid I find this a bit nit-picking. The words you cite as
"true" acronyms were once simply abbreviations, just as the museum names
are. However, wide use has led to their passing into the public domain as
"real" words, written in lower case. This is unlikely to happen to the
museum names, because they are unlikely to pass into general public use.
Richard J. Faulder
Yanco Agricultural Institute
Yanco NSW 2703
AUSTRALIA
7 messages in edu.ku.nhm.mailman.taxacomUnique Numbering of Specimens
