Re: [xml-dev] Is "XML" an abbreviation or an acronym?

["Alexander Johannesen" <alexander.johannesen@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 18:08, Mukul Gandhi <gandhi.mukul@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Didn't you mean the opposite, that XML is a word made from the initial
>> letters of the phrase "eXtensible Markup Language", and hence an
>> acronym?
>
> The XML specification, http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816/
> starts with, "Extensible Markup Language, abbreviated XML, describes"
> So the spec says, it's an abbreviation ...

No, the spec just states that the phrase is abbriviated XML. Any
acronym is also an abbreviated phrase.

The interesting part is that HTML spec 4.01
[http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.1] (as the OP asked
for) doesn't really know the difference either ;

   "acronyms such as "GmbH", "NATO", and "F.B.I.", as well as
abbreviations like "M.", "Inc.", "et al.", "etc."

In these examples XML falls into the abbr camp. But from a purely
pragmatic stance I'd recomend using <abbr> for whatever you think it
is, as browsers have better support for it. So there. :)


Alex
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