> I doubt that this distinction is helpful in our field. Quite a > few initialisms are brutally acronymed
And nouns brutally verbed....
> by significant numbers of speakers ("SQL",
SQL was, once upon a time, called SEQUEL, with the first E standing for English. Reasons given vary. Some say vaguely "legal reasons". One professor said the French objected. B-)
> "SCSI", "ACL", "TCAM").
TCAM is an example of a further phenomenon, the "partial acronym", at least when pronounced "tee-cam"....
-- David J. Aronson, Software Engineer for hire in Washington DC area. See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, references, etc.