[swift-evolution] Analysis of case conventions for initialisms

[Xiaodi Wu]

The distinction is still mystifying after reading that section. If I read
it right, a word is considered a "common word" if it's a dictionary
headword in whatever dictionary happens to be on the bookshelf. Thus,
because "ID" has an entry in that dictionary, it must be spelled "Id", but
"IO" must be left alone apparently because it wasn't in the dictionary of
choice (or, wasn't given in "closed form" in that dictionary) at the time
the API authors looked it up. But I can tell you for certain that "UI" is
now included in the Oxford English Dictionary (as of 2012 draft additions),
while "IO" is listed as "I/O".

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 12:29 PM Carlos Parada <carlosparada at mac.com> wrote:

> Acronyms vs. abbreviations is my own way of understanding it, but the
> actual .NET guidelines list “Id" under “Compound Words and Common Terms”.
> The guidelines are here:
>
> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229043(v=vs.110).aspx
>
> “Ok” and “Pi” are other ones listed under “Compound Words and Common
> Terms".
>
> — Carlos Parada
>
>
> > On Feb 12, 2016, at 10:11 AM, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> >
> > Oy. Distinguishing acronyms and abbreviations: this can't lead to
> > anything good. Reminds me of the seemingly endless attempt at
> > distinguishing <abbr> from <acronym> in HTML (until the standard
> > standardized on the former). For one, there's no agreed-upon
> > definition of the distinction between the two:
> >
> http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/abbreviations/abbreviations-acronyms-and-initialisms-revisited/
> >
> > If we use a commonly used distinction--that acronyms are "pronounced
> > as words" but abbreviations are not--neither "ID" nor "IO" are
> > pronounced "as words."
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 12:04 PM, Carlos Parada <carlosparada at mac.com>
> wrote:
> >> I’ve used the .NET frameworks and conventions extensibly and while some
> of them didn’t look quite right initially, they grew up on me, and now I
> prefer them.
> >>
> >> They do seem to use uppercase for two letter acronyms, but not for
> abbreviations though. When I started doing .NET I was so used to typing ID
> (as in identifier), but their convention is to type Id, as in CustomerId,
> or idForObject. It makes sense, just as you would use Ptr for Pointer, or
> Int for Integer.
> >>
> >> — Carlos Parada
> > _______________________________________________
> > swift-evolution mailing list
> > swift-evolution at swift.org
> > https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>
>
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