Imagine an "acronym" but instead of taking the first letter of each word, you took the entire first syllable of each word. I notice Japan, which incidentally has a syllabary, seems to create this sort of "acronym" fairly often.

Is there a word, like a linguistics word, for this type of syllabic "acronym"?

@mcc isn't the thing you're describing "initialism" and "acronym" the thing you're asking for? (or at least that's what i thought these words mean)

@whitequark @mcc both of those use the first letter of each word, but strictly speaking initialisms are read out as the letters (e.g. BGP, TCP) and acronyms are pronounced as a word (e.g. LARP, PIN), although in practice "acronym" gets used to mean both.

I think what mcc wants is more like "LoRa".

@gsuberland @mcc upon closer inspection there is no consensus on what "acronym" means
@gsuberland @whitequark It's interesting because language is fluid but usually the words used to describe language are more rigid due to them being selected by people whose job it is to describe language
@mcc @whitequark my general feeling is that this is true right up until you hit the "no plan survives contact with the enemy" effect of colloquial and informal usage.
@gsuberland @whitequark I like the idea of language speakers and linguists as natural enemies
@mcc @whitequark there's definite tribalism. the first example that came to mind is plural-data (which I hate)
@mcc @whitequark all my datums, gone
@gsuberland @mcc @whitequark
Time to bring out my absolute favourite linguistics discussion of all time again
@http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark The rhyming couplet at the end! *le baiser d'un chef*

@http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark

the last one is even kinda readable once you know to read that strange "o" as "the".

@agowa338 @http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark hehe It makes more sense if you read it as D with a currency extra dash the. You'd be half way there anyways ✌🏾
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_orthography
Icelandic orthography - Wikipedia

@http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark @david_chisnall I never thought I would see “Dog Anglo-Saxon” lol
stoned comedian ringo

stynt ðy clappe! beoð ðo writerris be wetleas knafen. ðy langag o engelond diffoulened be, ille usenid bi sclaundrous novelri.

Tumblr

Let me say that one of the things I most dislike in Tumblr (in addition to not being able to limit search of tags simply to your own blog) is the lack of automatic time stamps.

@swetland @http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark

@http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark I will happily sign a petition for the reintroduction of thou, thy, thee etc into the english language!
@http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark oh that is really good. all these points are familiar to us but it's just such a good telling of them
@http_error_418 @gsuberland @mcc @whitequark disappointing that there isn't a further response in Proto-Indo-European...
@mcc @gsuberland @whitequark descriptivists vs proscriptivists have been duking it out 4ever

@whitequark Ooh, I've had *fierce* arguments on Wikipedia about that one.

In my opinion, it's not even a useful distinction, because the same word can be pronounced either way, e.g. "earl" vs "you are ell".