> A small nitpick - BMW is not an acronym
BMW is an acronym for Bayerische Motoren Werke in German (or Bavarian Motor Works in English).
BMW is an acronym for Bayerische Motoren Werke in German (or Bavarian Motor Works in English).
To reiterate, an acronym must be able to be pronounced as a word.
I didn't say it was because people didn't know their meaning; I said it was because as far as most people are concerned, they're the same thing. I know what "initialism" means, but I choose not to use it, because as far as I'm concerned "NASA" and "FBI" are fundamentally the same thing. It's a waste of brain cells to figure out when to say "acronym" vs "initialism".
As an example where I think such a distinction is important, I do consistently write "MiB" when I'm talking about 2^20 bits. I only saw it the first time maybe 10 years ago, but it immediately seemed to be to be both practical and useful to make that distinction.
On the other hand, I never correct or ask clarification of people who use "MB", unless the difference becomes important. (Nor do I say "mebibyte", which is the proposed pronunciation of "MiB", because it's impossible to pronounce fluently.)
> ... the first known published use of the term in English [is] from 1940
That published use is as follows [1]:
> Pee-gee-enn. It's an acronym [Ger. Akronym], that's what it is. That's what they call words made up of initials.
In other words, the very first recorded use we have of the word "acronym" is actually what some people insist on calling an initialism. I don't know who, afterwards, decided that "acronym" had to mean that it had to be pronouncable, or why, but I didn't vote for them.
2. I'm an English language speaker (and writer) and you seem to be discounting my right to define language. Or just to maintain the definition of certain words because they contradict a weakened but popular & recent redefinition.
3. I'm not advocating initialism - it's not a word I recall ever using. But I'm not sure it's reasonable to claim that it's silly to invent new words to describe new things. I'd advocate abbreviation for an abbreviation you can't pronounce as a word, and acronym for an abbreviation you can.
Fair enough -- you have a vote; but when you "vote" for something from a minority usage point of view, you should make it clear that you are advocating for minority usage, and why. What you did instead was to assert that the "right" way to use the word was X, when in fact the initial usage was Y, and most people still use it as Y.
I don't object to people thinking carefully about how a language should work and then advocating for it; that's what I do myself. Nor do I object to correcting common "minority" usages that I think are going in the wrong direction. But a lot of people advocate changes which are more "pure" but are clunky and unhelpful.
For example:
* Using 'they' as a singular of unknown gender; i.e., "I have an appointment with Dr. Smith; when will they be free?" English has need for such a usage; 'they' is simple and understandable; and it's been in use since the 1400s. I'm a fan.
* Using "literally" as a meaningless intensifier; i,e., "My head literally exploded." I strongly object to this usage, and I will continue to object to it as long as it's practical to do so, even if I become a minority. The reason is that we already have hundreds of intensifiers, but we don't have very many ways to say, "I am not exaggerating or speaking metaphorically, this actually happened."
* Switching from "negative agreement" to "double negative == positive". In French, to say you've never done something, you say "Je n'ai jamais faire rien", which literally translated would be "I not have never done nothing". But it's not called a "triple negative", it's called "agreement": if any part of the sentence is negative, the whole sentence has to have negative forms. If you go back to Henry VIII's time, that was the officially correct way to say things in English too. but at some point, some people came in and said, "Well, if we make all negatives contradict the other negative, we can say things like 'It's not nothing.'" Then educated people got rid of agreement, and started telling less educated people, who were speaking the same way English had been spoken for hundreds of years, that they were speaking English "wrong". I think the new way is better, but I think it was kind of a jerk move to change it.
> I'm not advocating initialism - it's not a word I recall ever using. But I'm not sure it's reasonable to claim that it's silly to invent new words to describe new things. I'd advocate abbreviation for an abbreviation you can't pronounce as a word, and acronym for an abbreviation you can.
I didn't say it's silly to invent new words to describe new things. I'm saying that for most people, NASA and FBI are not different things. FBI is a word pronounced "effbiyaye". If people really thought of FBI and NASA as different things, then it would be easier to give them different words.
On the other hand, when people hear "abbreviation", they think more like "st" for street (or saint), "dr" for doctor, and so on. FBI is more like NASA than "st" or "dr". So it makes sense to call FBI and NASA by the same word.
If you personally think that making that distinction is useful, then by all means do so in your own writing. And if you think it's important for people in general to make that distinction, then go ahead and advocate for it. I'll continue to advocate against it, and people on the whole will decide. :-)
1. that I can not conveniently claim acronyms should be words and abbreviations are a superset that also includes non-words -- because the alleged original meaning of acronym was as a synonym for abbreviation, and
2. the initial meaning of 'literal' as something that was strictly true, but which has since moved via common usage to simply be yet another synonym for metaphorically, but you don't want it to change.
FWIW I also rail against literally being used for things that aren't literal, I don't dislike 'not unlike' and similar despite Orwell's (et al) protestations, I'm happy to co-opt 'they' as a third person personal pronoun (or restructure sentences to avoid needing to uncomfortably alternate and track he and she), I vehemently defend the difference between alternate and alternative, myriad is not a collective noun (don't precede with an article, or follow with a preposition), I never use decimate as a synonym for devastate, etc.
I suspect most misuses are from people who've heard or seen a word they weren't familiar with, failed to understand or research the meaning or part of speech, believe using it will imbue some much needed gravitas to their communication, and then expect the world to adopt their befuddlement.
As we seem to agree, the ultimate outcome of all this is a weakened language for sophisticated users.
When I need to describe an abbreviation that's pronounceable, I evidently now need to call it an abbreviation that's pronounceable. This is a retrograde step for me, despite the word 'abbreviation' already being appropriate, well known, and understood by world+dog.
> On the other hand, when people hear "abbreviation", they think more like "st" for street (or saint), "dr" for doctor ...
How comprehensive was the survey group behind this claim?
"Vote" for a language which is useful and practical.
I specifically said that if you think it's useful to say that NASA is an acronym but FBI isn't, then go ahead and do so. Just be prepared to give a justification of why you think it's better.
"That was the original meaning" isn't valid, because it wasn't the original meaning. "That's what all the dictionaries say" is a weak argument. I didn't elect them and I don't agree with their decision.