Is there some hidden pronounciation rule I’m not aware of? And why do we say F.B.I and not FBI or U.S.B and not USB ?
I know it seems a really silly question seeing the actual situation with the ICE eveywhere on the news… But this really bothers me on why people yell ICE when it’s actually the I.C.E :/.
Acronyms vs Initialisms
No one is going to try pronounce Fbi, it’s awkward.
There are terms that bridge the Acronym/Initialism divide. SQL-Sequel, URL-Earl and GUI-Gooey are some that come up fairly regularly in my line of work.
The bottom line is; Language is used to communicate concepts. We are lazy and do it as efficiently as we can get away with. The rules have changed a LOT to get us where we are today. It would be blind hubris to think the change will stop just because we don’t like it.
I’ve been in IT for over 30 years and never once heard someone try to make an acronym of URL.
Never heard someone say earl for URL and I would not understand if someone did. That’s like if i pronounced FBI freebie
Funny enough… I do say S.Q.L or U.R.L 😅
Squirrel and Earl
Me too. And I say them on the World Wide Web, which is quicker to say than the WWW.
Dub Dub Dub
That never really caught on though.
On the W.W.W or Www?
SQL, back in 2015, officially transitioned from being pronounced Sequel to being pronounced EssQueueEll.
I still call it Sequel.
Then again, I say U R L, but also pronounce URI as Yuri. I also say L O L instead of Loll and I R L instead of Earl.
And then there’s mixed acronyms like Jaypeg and Empeg.
Yup, those are contested