Difference between <acronym> and <abbr>?
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14-09-2019 - |
Question
Definitionally they seem the same, yet they are deemed dissimilar enough by the W3C to have separate tag definitions. What is the semantic difference between <acronym>
and <abbr>
in terms of linguistics, the HTML spec and interpretation.
Solution
An acronym is made of the initial letters of some words (e.g.Hypertext Mark-up Language => HTML), while an abbreviation is a shortened form of a word (e.g. abbreviation => abbr).
Wikipedia gives a more accurate view of the nitty-gritty details.
OTHER TIPS
Actually, the differences are so small that HTML5 decided to drop acronym
in favour of abbr
.
abbreviation: A shortened form of a word.
ex: lb., amt., mgmt.
initialism: An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a phrase
ex: HTML, SVG
acronym: An initialism that is pronounced as a word.
ex: radar, scuba, JIT, WYSIWYG
Old question aside, the <acronym>
tag is not supported in HTML5. Use the <abbr>
tag instead.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-ABBR says:
Western languages make extensive use of acronyms such as "GmbH", "NATO", and "F.B.I.", as well as abbreviations like "M.", "Inc.", "et al.", "etc.". Both Chinese and Japanese use analogous abbreviation mechanisms, wherein a long name is referred to subsequently with a subset of the Han characters from the original occurrence.
So I guess Aa Bb Cccccc -> ABC
is acronym, -> Ab Bb Ccc
. is abbreviation. Practically I saw people use <abbr>
.
Abbreviation
is just a short form of a word or a phrase while acronym
represents each letter in a word (e.g. ASAP: as soon as possible).
abbr: uses short form of the word. example:- U.K. for United Kingdom acronym: word formed from the initial parts of a name, such as Commintern, from Communist International