X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,ef84650dd3e606e5 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-17 20:02:42 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3BCE4670.9080009@usa.net> From: Peter Henderson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.3) Gecko/20010801 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: what is it? References: <3BC7137B.20402@usa.net> <9qclsj$moe3s$3@ID-39741.news.dfncis.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 03:02:42 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.0.34.122 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com 1003374162 24.0.34.122 (Wed, 17 Oct 2001 20:02:42 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 20:02:42 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.ascii-art:8629 Peter Punk wrote: > It is an acronym, and if an acronym is pronouncable as a regular word, people > usually will pronounce it as a word. > Some examples are NATO, NAFTA, UNESCO, ASCII, etcetera. Actually, et cetera is two words. It comes from Latin, literally, "and (the) rest." (The is in () because Latin doesn't have articles. Articles are "the" "a" and "an.") So et cetera is not an acronym. Technically it can be one word, but not how it's usually used. Usually it means, "and so forth." As one word it means "odds and ends." Then it's a noun. Compare: . And finally an acronym is a word made from the first letters of other words, according to the dictionary. I think it's also sometimes the first _few_ letters (not only the first _one_). Hope that helps your English to be more perfect. Maybe you can do that with my Danish? (or whatever language(s) you speak, if I remember incorrectly) :o) BTW what does "1800wu/2.563yrs" and similar mean in your sig? BTW again, nice name *wink* Sincerely, Peter Henderson peterhenderson@usa.net