[Sigia-l] government acronyms format

[Andrew Hinton]

The New Yorker also puts Umlauts on words like "coördinate"... They're
weird!  So, yeah, avoid that.

But, my main concern would be what happens if you have more than one meaning
for a given acronym? We run into that a lot now in technology (is ASP Active
Server Pages or Application Service Provider?). I've never seen (nor looked
hard for) a way to handle that situation...but I'd be curious if there is
one.

I'm pretty sure the gov't has more acronyms than even technologists, so I'd
be surprised if none of them overlap.


::riesland65 at yahoo.com::wrote on 5/31/02 3:13 PM:

> My 2 cents :)
> 
> The New Yorker (I believe) prints acronyms with
> all the dots. 
> 
> Back when I was a full-time editor, we usually
> dropped all the dots. I believe that is Chicago
> style.
> 
> The periods are a pain to type and awkward at the
> end of a sentence. For example, "She joined the
> F.B.I.." It looks like an elipses.
> 
> Anyhow, just be consistent on your "preferred"
> style, then load up your metadata with all
> reasonably possible variations! On the web,
> there's no one way.
> 
> M.
> 
> --- Franciel Azpurua <fazpurua at infointl.com>
> wrote:
>> All,
>> 
>> I work for the Southern Appalachian Information
>> Node (SAIN, @
>> sain.nbii.gov), one of the National Biological
>> Information
>> Infrastructure (NBII, see www.nbii.gov) nodes,
>> most of the 'nodes' are
>> gateways to regional biological (biodiversity,
>> ecology, etc)
>> information. As part of our work we also create
>> metadata records for
>> many data sets and web sites that are produced
>> by government
>> agencies.----Sorry for the long story but I
>> promise I am going somewhere
>> with this. 
>> 
>> We are trying to develop a common vocabulary
>> for the nodes and one of
>> the issues is the common representation of
>> government acronyms within
>> the record (for example, if the creator of a
>> web site is the USGS, how
>> do we represent the acronym? U.S.G.S? USGS? US
>> Geological Survey?).
>> 
>> Do any of you know about an official (or de
>> facto) standard list for the
>> representation of government acronyms?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Franciel Azpurua-Linares
>> Knowledge Manager / IA
>> Southern Appalachian Information Node
>> (SAIN)-NBII
>> 122 S. Jefferson Cir., Oak Ridge TN 37830
>> Phone (865) 481-0388 .x 116 & Fax (865)
>> 481-0390
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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> 
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>  by W. Wayt Gibbs
>  Scientific American
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:: s y m e t r i ::
andrew.hinton ÷ information.architecture ÷ ahinton at symetri.com