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Re: Should we wrap common abbreviations in tags?

for

From: Waltenberger, Lon (LNI)
Date: Dec 3, 2008 10:55AM

You might like this 2006 in depth discussion of the issue at
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/hattrick#IRS.

We've found that it's best to keep it simple and follow Gregg's
Reference Manual without tags.

It can become overly complex especially if you delve into the
differences and similarities of abbreviations, initialisms, and
acronyms. Most folks know all 3 as acronyms.

Additionally, screen readers can mess with abbreviations and initialisms
by trying to pronounce them phonetically as a word or acronym. Even the
pronunciation of acronyms can be confusing. Some try to avoid this by
using periods or spaces after each letter. Each option has its own
issues.

Then there're the issues of deprecation and mixed support in browsers
and upcoming versions of HTML.

We chose a simple convention based on Gregg's.

Hope that helps or makes some sense to you.