QRE: Do you pronounce...

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

Wonderful.  Now "Fekudden" is in my head.

Why would the traditional rule for using indefinite articles change in this
case?  Tradionally, and CMS supports this in 14.15, if an abbreviation is
pronounced as a word, then use the article that you would use before the
word.  Otherwise, use the article that is appropriate if the letters as they
are pronounced.  According to CMS, "rarely is the abbreviation read as
though all of the words were spelled out."  "Fekudden" is not a word, so the
choice, by following this rule, is "an FQDN."

Now maybe one day FQDN will be pronounced as a word, like SCSI.  Remember
those?  We may not like the word "scuzzy," I don't anyway, but SCSI is
treated as word, as in "a SCSI" and not "an SCSI."  Or at least it should be
treated as a word because that is how it is stated in speech.

Lauren
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On 
> Behalf Of McLauchlan, Kevin
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 7:32 AM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Do you pronounce...
> 
> FQDN as "Fully Qualified Domain Name", or as "Eff Cue Dee Enn" ?
> 
>  
> 
> And please, nobody say it's a Fekudden.
> 
>  
> 
> Somebody wanted a summary of FQDN and the rules for the 
> fields, and the
> discussion went back and forth in e-mail with one person talking about
> "an FQDN" and the other about "a FQDN", indicating that the 
> first person
> pronounces the letters of the initialism, and the second person either
> always speaks out the full four-word name (even in his head?) or else
> calls it a Fekudden... which I simply won't allow in my docs.
> 
>  
> 
> What I want to know is what most people feel is natural when they see
> the thing written.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm in the Eff Cue Dee Enn camp, so I would write it with the 
> "an" form
> of the indefinite article preceding.  Every time I read the other
> fellow's "a FQDN" I found myself uncomfortably sub-vocalizing "a
> Fekudden"...... nasty.  And yet, there he is, and he's a 
> native english
> speaker, so ... is there a majority opinion?
> 
>  
> 
> Anyone?
> 
>  
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 
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