Re: [PATCH 6/9] Slightly revise documentation of POSIX mode.

[Chet Ramey]

On 12/30/24 8:29 PM, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi Chet,

Hi.

> At 2024-12-30T12:40:48-0500, Chet Ramey wrote:
> > On 12/16/24 12:48 PM, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > * doc/bash.1: Introduce "POSIX mode" earlier in the document.  Set
> > > the word "POSIX" in small caps (as traditionally done for acronyms)
> >
> > `POSIX' is not an acronym, despite the Open Group's efforts to retcon
> > it.  It's historically been just a name.
>
> Okay.  The important point here is not what "POSIX" literally stands
> for, if anything, but how it's pronounced.  Traditionally, as in 50-70
> years ago, the use of small caps to typeset a word was a cue that a term
> was not to be read like an initialism (USA, FBI, BBC) but as a
> pronounceable word (NASA, NATO, UNICEF).

POSIX is pronounceable. (The Open Group FAQ includes the suggested
pronunciation.)


>  Unfortunately, practice is
> much more chaotic now.[1] 

At some point in the past, when I was more accommodating, someone
requested that I use it in the texinfo manual. Since it was only the
texinfo manual, I suspect it was somone connected with GNU, but I
can't remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4WIuL4dxRc

Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

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