xml-dev - RE: A or An

[Peter Murray-Rust <peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>]

At 07:32 PM 6/13/00 -0400, Bob Kline wrote:
>On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Pablo Montilla wrote:
>
>> SQL it's pronounced 'Sequel' so, it must be "a sequel command"
>
>This has drifted way off topic, but the official pronunciation is
>"ess-cue-ell."

I am currently using XML terminology to illustrate the next release of the
Virtual HyperGlossary website (long overdue, but hopefully today/tomorrow).
It is clearly important to capture and present the "official" pronunciation
of terms (I would have no idea *where* to verify the pronunciation of SQL,
etc.). It is often not trivial to work out pronunciation for acronyms and
abbreviations. If there are any "unobvious" pronunciations for terms in XML
and related specs I would be grateful for them. I assume that by default an
acronym is either pronounced as:
	a concatenation of the anglophone pronunciation of the letters
("ex-em-el", "ex-ess-el", "ex-ess-el-tee") (but "Z"?)
OR if they are prefixed by an "X" (XLink), are split at that point
("ex-link", not "ex-el-i-en-kay")
OR if they contain vowels may be pronounced as oligo-syllabic words ("fop",
"dom", "sax")
OR if they are suffixed by an "ML" with a pronounceable prefix are split
there ("math"-"em"-"el");

ELSE the authors of the spec could usefully suggest pronunciation. 

[Are there languages where the XML acronyms or abbreviations are different
from in English?] 

Formally, I assume , that XML stands for "[the] eXtensible Markup Language"
and therefore is a noun, of which there is only one  example. In "an XML" I
would assume that it is being used as a nounal adjective and that the
phrase is incomplete.

I think this is an important topic because speech synthesizers and natural
language processors need al the help they can get from consistency of usage!

	P.



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