acronyms versus abbreviations

[Wilson Gray]

How about USAREUR (United States Army, Europe) pronounced "YOU-suh-roor"?
OTOH, the collocations USASAE, USASASOU, ARB, AHB, etc. had no
pronunciations, despite the plethora of vowels.

-Wilson


On 2/27/06, Mark A. Mandel <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: acronyms versus abbreviations
>
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>
> Jim added:
>     >>>>>
> yet another member of the acronym family:  the one in which a string of
> letters which is not pronounceable as stands is rendered into something
> pronounceable.  The example that comes to mind is /'nim squat'/ for NMSQT
> (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test).
> <<<<<
>
> POSSLQ = /'pas at lkju/ = "possle Q", official U.S. Census (I think) -ese for
> "person of same sex sharing living quarters".
>
> -- Mark
> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]
>
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