On 2017-12-07, Jeroen Demeyer <jdeme...@cage.ugent.be> wrote: > On 2017-12-02 01:24, d...@shorewestern.com wrote: >> communicative human nature yearns for >> abbreviation > > My impression is that this is mostly an American phenomenon.
When I did my PhD in Strasbourg, I thought it was a French phenomenon. Unless you see a clear distinction between an abbreviation and an acronym. I often wondered about acronyms written on signs around university. Once, when I was about to enter the building of IRMA (clearly: Institut de recherche mathématique avancée, which is also "known" as UMR 7501), someone asked me for directions. More precisely, he asked me (translated to English): "Where do I find [some random combination of letters]?" So, that guy not only used the acronym in speaking (instead of only in writing), but he also took it for granted that everybody understands a random acronym. In German, we have an abbreviation for "compulsive abbreviation disorder": Aküfi ("Abkürzungsfimmel", which roughly means "abbrevimania"). That said, I consider SageMath to be a name. OT, but anyway... Regards, Simon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.