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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.4.155.39 (talk) at 10:50, 10 April 2014 (→Acronyms become used as words: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Multidel

Can we add CAC?

I can't count the number of times I've heard someone talk about their "cac card".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Access_Card —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.132.205.29 (talk) 20:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True, but is it a common enough term outside of the military or DoD to warrant inclusion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.15.255.228 (talk) 14:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further examples perhaps qualifying for inclusion

-Anomalocaris (talk) 18:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CSBC Corporation, Taiwan - where CSBC stands for China Shipbuilding Corporation, hence, "China Shipbuilding Corporation Corporation, Taiwan". The official name of the company is "CSBC Corporation, Taiwan" since 2007, where it was previously known as just CSBC. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:58, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
UPC code. swain (talk) 00:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
MIDI interface. --188.126.207.212 (talk) 21:12, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I somewhat surprised that no one has suggested 'AC current' (Alternating current current). 86.178.9.171 (talk) 09:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's already mentioned, in the "Reasons for use" section ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • FLOPS per second (floating-point operations per second per second)
Added to the page by 82.101.19.66 on 17:30, 9 November 2011. Moved here by Cnilep (talk) 00:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Seconded!! One of my pet peeves in newspapers. So if there should be added one more, it's this, because medicine/science has not yet been covered in the list at all. Plus, 3 is really a bit too few. BTW, it's even mentioned in Paul's list: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/hiv.html -andy 77.191.218.187 (talk) 15:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"These 3 items"

I have just rolled back two added examples, noting "Consensus is to keep the list at these 3 items." I copied that edit summary from the hidden comment on the page. To my slight embarrassment, though, I see that there are currently only two examples listed, following Afjweb's edit to remove CSS. There is an older comment above pointing out that CSS is a problematic example, since it is also called "less applicable" further down the page.

Can we work toward some consensus on a new item to add to the examples? I think that three is a nice number: large enough to illustrate the pattern, but short enough not to invite attempts to be exhaustive.

Examples suggested in the past include:

  • PCB board (printed circut board board)
  • UPC code (universal product code code)
  • LCD display (liquid crystal display display)
  • RCP plan (reflected ceiling plan plan)
  • ISP provider (internet service provider provider)
  • GUI interface (graphical user interface interface)

See also the numerous examples suggested in other sections of this talk page.

My vote is for "UPC code", since I feel it is the most commonly used. (I have no empirical evidence for that feeling, though.) LCD display is perhaps equally frequent and equally well-known; the others seem either slightly obscure (RCP, GUI) or unlikely to to use the expanded form (PCB board, ISP provider). Cnilep (talk) 04:30, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I stand corrected: the Corpus of Contemporary American English lists 5 examples of "UPC code" and 65 of "LCD display" in its 425 million word corpus. I'll add that example for the time being. Comment here if you disagree. Cnilep (talk) 04:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
UPC codes are rarely talked about by "the common man" (although extremely frequently used!); LCD displays, however, are a frequently marketed and discussed consumer technology, so it seems intuitive to me that it be a more common example. - IMSoP (talk) 00:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Two more examples

[I understand it's useful to keep the article's example list trimmed, but it seems to me this talk page is a fine place to collect additional examples.]

Now that LEDs are being used in more and more lighting applications, we're starting to hear people refer to "LED lights".

My favorite: The La Brea tar pits, which if you translate the original Spanish name expands to "The The Tar Tar Pits". (But I guess this isn't really an acronym issue.) —Steve Summit (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PIN number

Unlike with others like "ATM machine" which are clearly redundant, "PIN number" is not completely redundant. There are other types of pins. 4.238.1.82 (talk) 22:55, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not true, for several reasons:
  • The basic meaning of "redundant" is that something is repeated. It doesn't necessarily indicate that the repetition serves no purpose. Sometimes redundancy does serve a purpose, e.g. error detection and correction and other failsafe systems.
  • You've already distinguished it from a pin, by writing "PIN" instead of "pin".
  • Even in speech, where you don't have this way of distinguishing them, the phrase "pin number" could equally be a number by which a pin is identified. I imagine that this is common in discussions of audio-visual and computer peripheral connectors.
  • 99% of the time, whether a PIN or a pin is being talked about is obvious from the context.
  • Even if we did need a way to distinguish the two in speech, what's wrong with "PINumber" or "pea eye en"?
— Smjg (talk) 18:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Plus: An acronym/initialism can stand for more than one thing. So people could potentially say "ATM machine" or "ATM Manager" to distinguish them, though it is still silly. — Smjg (talk) 19:38, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PNS syndrome

In July 2013 User:TenPoundHammer removed several bits of unsourced or badly sourced information. I have, however, recently restored one part of that information.

The old version of the page asserted, "The similar term PNS syndrome (which expands to "PIN number syndrome syndrome", and further to "personal identification number number syndrome syndrome") was coined by Usenet users before the coining of RAS Syndrome", and quoted a Google archive of alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe. As TenPoundHammer noted, a Usenet group is not a reliable source, since it is user-generated. It is a particularly unfit source for this bit of information, since it is a primary source.

Nonetheless, the primary source does reveal that the word "PNS syndrome" was used on Usenet. I have therefore changed the article to read, "The similar term PNS syndrome (which expands to "personal identification number number syndrome syndrome") was used by Usenet users." I have also tagged the assertion as requiring a non-primary source. Note that this assertion makes no unverified claim about the word's origin. Cnilep (talk) 00:48, 23 October 2013 (UTC) @Cnilep:I doubt a secondary source would ever come up verifying that something was the case on Usenet. I can think of a billion Usenet-isms that would never have a secondary source verifying their existence. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 01:20, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Acronyms become used as words

I think it might be worth noting in the section describing reasonable usage that often acronyms end up being used as if they were words themselves. For example, RSVP (the French for something like "respond please" has become an English verb meaning "to respond to an invitation; to comfirm whether or not one will attend an event" or similar. It is often used with suffexes: "Nancy RSVPed via email"; "When did RSVPing fall out of fashion?" When taking as a word rather than an acronym, it makes sense for the apparent redundancy. HIV is a type of virus, as is flu.

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