"PIN" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Dan Goncharoff]

Sorry, but this conversation seems a bit divorced from reality.

"NBA" and "NFL" represent acronyms for long-standing names of leagues,
which is why "the NBA" and "the NFL" have been used for decades.

For most of their history, the American League (AL) and the National
League (NL) had no clear terminology for their combined activities,
the closest being "Major League", often used in the phrase "ML
baseball". It wasn't until the late 90s that the Office of the
Commissioner of ML baseball started referring to itself as "Major
League Baseball". (The AL and NL as organizations were disbanded in
2000.)

I would expect the language to somewhat reflect the history.

DanG

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: "PIN" (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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>
> Most of the links you provide below are to graphs which are not complete
> on the left (early) side.  In every case I checked, if you changed the
> beginning date to one several decades earlier, you'd get more hits that
> the original graph did not show.
>
> Apparently Google News Archives defaults to a graph which doesn't
> include every citation it finds.
>
> This is not to say, however, that Victor's basic point is wrong -- it
> isn't.  All of the acronyms have grown greatly in the last few decades
> (probably associated with the growth in marketing the leagues themselves
> as brands).
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of
>> Victor Steinbok
>> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 5:05 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: "PIN"
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> ----------------------
>> -
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "PIN"
>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------
>> -
>>
>>   Not only that, but MLB is a fairly recent vintage. I don't recall
> ever
>> hearing or seeing references to "MLB" prior to the late 1990s--i.e.,
> the
>> "dotcom era". Checking GNA gives a very vivid graph:
>>
>> http://bit.ly/9EU41j
>>
>> To make matters worse, most of the early hits are from documents on
>> MLB.com. The graph for "MLB baseball" makes the point even more
> obvious:
>>
>> http://bit.ly/9QUHy8
>>
>> Compare that distribution to "major leagues baseball" (you extend the
>> search range into the early 1900s):
>>
>> http://bit.ly/bJWnOl
>>
>> Clearly the Google database is not exhaustive, but it provides a
> fairly
>> clear view of a cross-section of publications.
>>
>> In fact, comparing NBA to MLB is also illustrative:
>>
>> http://bit.ly/99R2fx
>> http://bit.ly/cO3QYM
>>
>> and
>>
>> http://bit.ly/b7PmJa
>>
>> Clearly, there is a recent upswing in "NBA basketball" hits, but
> that's
>> largely due to 1) a similar increase in "NBA" hits, and 2) a gradual
>> increase in the number of digital-ready publications available to
>> Google. The numbers for "MLB baseball" cannot be explained in the same
>> manner.
>>
>>      VS-)
>>
>> On 8/12/2010 4:39 PM, Dan Goodman wrote:
>> > Jeff Prucher wrote:
>> >>> From: Dan Goodman<dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM>
>> >>>
>> >>> USA Today's tv listings of baseball broadcasts include the phrase
> "MLB
>> >>> baseball."
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> That strikes me more as being specific about which league is being
>> broadcast (as
>> >> opposed to, say, NCAA baseball) than redundant.
>> >>
>> > MLB = Major League Baseball.    It refers to the National League and
> the
>> > American League.  Not to one specific league.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Dan Goodman
>> > "I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
>> > Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
>> > Journal dsgood.dreamwidth.org (livejournal.com, insanejournal.com)
>>
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