DFN tag, is this the correct usage 5

[1DMF]

Hello,

I want to use the DFN tag but am unsure if i am using it correctly.

the info I have on the tag is

DFN:
Indicates that this is the defining instance of the enclosed term.

so i read this to mean a definition of something, here is the context i wish to use it.

<dd>Our advisers <em>may</em> charge a fee for the advice they give, depending on your circumstances and requirements, but don't worry, before any chargable advice is given you will receive an <acronym title="Financial Services Authority">FSA</acronym> required document outlining the company's <em>'Terms of Business'</em>, which is know as the [b]<dfn>KeyFacts About Our Service(s)</dfn>[/b] document.</dd>

I've googled for further info but all the examples show it as is, is there no attributes that go with this tag?

Should there not be a title giving a description such as title="Document you will recieve by law"

or is my usage wrong? if so do i need a tag for this, though it is a very important document and needs emphasising (did i just answer my own question with that statement (<em>) - lol )

on a side note, i've added a style to all <acronym> tags so on hover the cursor changes to 'help' , is this correct?

to me it seems the point of the <acroymn> tag is to give help to those not knowing the meaning, so this cursor:help; class seems appropriate, wouldn't you say.

last but not least, I was reading W3C schools on the text tags and they give an exampe of <abbr> as follows

 <ABBR title="World Wide Web">WWW</ABBR>

i'm confused, isn't

http://WWW and

acronym of World Wide Web NOT an abbreviation.

abbr is an abbreviation of 'Abbreviation'
etc is an abbreviation of 'Et cetera'

so if the people who set the standards get it wrong, what chance do i have?




"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[feherke]

Hi

i'm confused, isn't

http://WWW and

acronym of World Wide Web NOT an abbreviation.

Correct. And now I am confused. I knew that such incorrect markup is usually done, because Explorer 6 has no clue about what [tt]acronym[/tt] is. Now I tried it and got confused : Explorer displayed correctly the [tt]title[/tt] of the [tt]acronym[/tt], but done nothing for the [tt]abbr[/tt]. Hmm... I need a [confused] smiley here.

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[1DMF]

shoot, if the TT guru's are stuck on this one, i've got no-where else to turn....

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[Vragabond]

http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2004/12/15/forgotten-element-types

Read comments here on abbreviation and acronym. It is very confusing and without a clear consensus what is what, but according to most:
abbreviation is anything that is abbreviated
initialism is an abbreviation composed of first letter of individual words
acronym is an initialism that is actually a new word in itself (think radar, nato or ikea)

Following that definition,

http://WWW is

abbreviation but not an acronym. But the whole thing is just a can of worms and I don't think it is smart to open it now. You can find good explanations on acronyms and abbreviations in Wikipedia as well.

As for the IE6 support, it does not support abbr, but it does support acronym. That is why people prefer to use acronym for all their abbreviations.

___________________________________________________________
[small]Do something about world cancer today: PACT[/small]

 

[1DMF]

thanks Vragabond.

Looks like it is a can of worms, as I would not agree with

http://WWW beng

an abbreviation, so i'll just keep to what i've got and be done with it.

wish i never knew about semantics, ignorance was bliss

come back tables, all is forgiven!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[PedalSteel]

> Looks like it is a can of worms, as I would not agree
> with

http://WWW beng

an abbreviation

It's like this: the verb abbreviate simply means shorten.

WWW is an initialism.
IBM is an initialism.
HTML is an initialism.

COBOL is an acronym.
Laser is an acronym.

Etc. is an abbreviation.
Abbr. is an abbreviation.

SQL is an initialism to some, and an acronym to others (spoken as "sequel").

All initialisms are abbreviations. All acronyms are abbreviations. Not all abbreviations are either acronyms or initialisms.

 

[1DMF]

Yup, clear as mud!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[PedalSteel]

> Yup, clear as mud!

Cutting to the chase, WWW is an abbreviation. Surely that's clear enough.

It is also an initialism. It is not an acronym.

As usual when it comes to anything involving standards, Microsoft seems to have strayed from the Narrow Path. Deliberately? The reader will have to decide.

 

[feherke]

Hi

Well, I still think

http://WWW is

an acronym, because none of the three Ws is the shortened form of the given word. So I will just keep marking it with the [tt]acronym[/tt] tag.

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[1DMF]

me too!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[1DMF]

If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary (which is THE dictionary for English)

The defenition of an acronym is as follows...

ak-ro-nim n. a word formed from the initial letters of other words e.g. Nato, Unesco

Sorry PedalSteel but you are wrong!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[Vragabond]

1DMF, told you it was a can of worms.

Now see what Oxford Dictionary says for [tt]<dfn>word</dfn>[/tt].

___________________________________________________________
[small]Do something about world cancer today: PACT[/small]

 

[1DMF]

lol - you're not kidding!

TT Forum Moderator, can we have a new smiley icon please (Can of Worms)!

yes i was pondering on the fact that it says 'word' formed from initial letters.

Does it have to be another word found in the dictionary, so is

http://WWW a

word? , does it have to be something that is pronouncable as a word, well hey

http://WWW might

be perfectly pronouncable if you speak Manderin or Cantanees - lol

and what's funny is what does that make the missus? her initials are M.E.A.L , 'Michaela Elisabeth Anne Lemon', that spells 'meal', so that must be a qualified acronym, yet take my initials CC , that isn't a word, but I used the same method to get to those initials for both our names.

well as they say there is always an exception to the rule!!!!!!

- my brain hurts!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[1DMF]

And what's even funnier, is even the Oxford dictionary contradicts itself, it gave an example for an acronym as Nato.

Look up the description for Nato and what does it say

NATO (also Nato)
• abbreviation North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Yup, it says it's an abbreviation - lol - how funny is that!


little bit of interesting reading on the subject i thought i'd post below, never heard of backronyms or retronyms before.

ARBs (acronyms, retronyms, and backronyms)
Acronyms are part of our daily lives, even if we don't always realize when we're using them - we go scuba-diving, see a laser light show, and bemoan the proliferation of quangos. These are all words that are formed from the first letters of other words; for instance, scuba comes from the initials of self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.

Although many acronyms are, rather boringly, names of organizations (NASA), computing terms (BASIC), or financial products (TESSA), some encapsulate new concepts or phenomena in a memorable way. Ever since the yuppies and Nimbys of the 1980s, market researchers and others have been coining snappy (or slightly laboured) terms to describe new social types: recently, we've encountered kippers, who are older offspring who still live at home with their parents (from Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings) and neets (young people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training), while SKI-ing refers to those parents who are Spending their Kids' Inheritance rather than bequeathing it to them in their wills.

But what about backronyms? Also spelled bacronym, this term refers to either an alternative explanation created for an existing acronym or to an acronym-type 'explanation' of an ordinary word, often with a humorous intent. For example, one of the more printable backronyms for spam email is Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages, while rather insulting ones for the army include Aren't Real Men Yet. Reworkings of existing acronyms or abbreviations include Wait Wait Wait (World-Wide Web) and Looking At Source Erases Retina (laser).

In fact, some of the acronyms mentioned above (such as kippers and SKI-ing) could also be regarded as backronyms, as they were created to fit existing words. Whether or not you fancy a career in market research, you could idle away a few minutes inventing some more - how about pews (Physically Exhausted Working Spouses)?

A retronym, on the other hand, isn't a type of acronym at all, but rather a compound word (usually consisting of the original noun preceded by an adjective) that has been created because the first thing the noun referred to has been overtaken by progress and now needs to be differentiated from a newer development. For instance, before the advent of the electric guitar, all guitars were just known as 'guitars' - the compound term acoustic guitar had to be invented (first recorded in 1966 in the Oxford English Dictionary) to differentiate between the electric and non-electric instrument.

Other retronymic compound words include natural language (first recorded in 1960), which was introduced to distinguish human language from artificial languages created for use by computers, and snail mail (dating back to 1983), which was wittily invented to describe the (comparatively slow) real-world postal service as opposed to email.

The word retronym itself was coined by Frank Mankiewicz, an American PR executive and journalist, and has been discussed in several articles by the writer William Safire in the New York Times since the 1980s. With the current pace of technological and social change, more retronymic coinages are bound to crop up, although it may be some time before we need to distinguish distance travel from time travel.

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[ChrisHunt]

I still think

http://WWW is

an acronym, because none of the three Ws is the shortened form of the given word

Huh? Each of those Ws is a shortened for of their respective words. The words have been shortened by removing all but the first letter.

Yup, it says [NATO's] an abbreviation - lol - how funny is that!

It says that, and it's true. As PedalSteel explains above, all acronyms are abbreviations by definition (but NOT vice versa).

In an ideal world we'd use <abbr> and <acronym> correctly and semantically (and it would be clear when to use each one). In the world where IE6 is still widely used, we have to use <acronym> for all abbreviations - still what we lose in semantic purity we gain in simplicity!

Now, [tt]<dfn>[/tt] is a much more obscure element, but quite a handy one.

I think your usage example above is pretty much exactly right. If you define a term in the body of some text, you use the [tt]<dfn>[/tt] element to mark up the term in question. The idea is that a reader could then scan your text (visually or programatically) to find the definition of an unfamiliar term.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[1DMF]

so although I couldn't find any attributes for the tag, title is one.

thanks chris.

I'm still confused with the acronym thing , if all acronyms are abbreviations then we wouldn't need to call them acronyms, they would all be abbreviations.

and the OED should say that Nato is an abbrviation and an acronym , but it doesn't and if they are both the same then you would wrap an acronym in an acronym tag and wrap that in an abbreviation tag, if you wanted to have truely 100% semantics, if all acroynms are abbreviations!

I'm going to bury this can and forget about it, it's not worth worrying to much about, though it was certainly fun investigating it!

Looks like we were both right PedalSteel!

Thanks to all who participated!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[PedalSteel]

> Sorry PedalSteel but you are wrong!

I'm a frayed knot, 1DMF.

All acronyms are abbreviations.

All initialisms are abbreviations.

All acronyms are words.

WWW is not a word (unless you pronounce it wuhwuhwuh or worse). WWW is not an acronym. WWW is an initialism. WWW is an abbreviation.

May I call you Wandumph?

 

[feherke]

Hi

I still think

http://WWW is

an acronym, because none of the three Ws is the shortened form of the given word

Huh? Each of those Ws is a shortened for of their respective words. The words have been shortened by removing all but the first letter.

As far as I know the abbreviation/shortened form keeps the original meaning, being the shorter equivalent of the original word. Like when you read "abbr", you doubtlessly know that means "abbreviation". But if you would read "W", you would not know what it should mean, because it does not kept the meaning, so is not the shortened equivalent of the original word, so not an abbreviation. Again, as far as I know...

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[1DMF]

yes but if all acronyms are abbreviations!

feherke , stop digin up that can, I thought i'd buried it already, need to find a new hiding place ;-)



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[1DMF]

Wandumph?

what does that mean, don't tell me it's an acronym - lol

well at least the initialisation of the missus name to an abbreviated version still equals a fully qualified acronym - lol, what's just as funny is her sister's intials are M.T.

So I always tell her, "you can't make a meal out of an empty lemon!"

though her sister has now got married and so is no longer a Lemon!

oh well they say little things please little minds! - no comments required

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!