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An international body (which included multiple organizations) who didn't want to favor any particular language. We could use more work and thinking like that th
by mfer 7y ago
An international body (which included multiple organizations) who didn't want to favor any particular language. We could use more work and thinking like that these days.
- Hamuko 7y agoExcept it still favours languages that use the same initial letters for universal, time and coordinated. Don't know why it's such a big deal to favour one language for an abbreviation and let others just deal with it. We dirty foreigners also have FM radios, hailing from the country of US(A) in the year 2019 AD (the era that follows BC).
- wil421 7y agoFM was created in America and shared with the world. UTC was coined by an international group. In my experience if French speakers are happy with your choice of non-French wording then you should take it while you can.
- SilasX 7y agoReminds me of how French-speaking jurisdictions insist on using a .gouv TLD instead of .gov, almost as if they have to remind you're abbreviating a French word, even though the shorter one is also a valid abbreviation of their language's word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#International_equivalents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#International_equivalents
- seszett 7y agoFrance has a .gouv.fr second-level domain but it's not a TLD, and I don't see any reason why it should be .gov.fr instead (.gov is reserved for the US government). France speaks French and the visitors to these sites speak French as well, why not use French names?
- SilasX 7y agoNotice all the other (non-US) countries in the list using .gov.<two letter country code>? There's nothing stopping them from using .gov.fr, just like Ireland uses .gov.ie. >France speaks French and the visitors to these sites speak French as well, why not use French names? .gov is no less of a "French name" than .gouv. They're both (natural) abbreviations of "government" and "gouvernement", as they keep the same letters in the same order and form a sound that would naturally be recognizable as a contraction of "government/gouvernement". It would be like if the US were the only English-speaking country to use .orgz instead of .org on the basis that "Hey, we have to use the z in the abbreviation to show that we're not contracting it from 'organisation' like those Brits." It's a remarkably petty way to distinguish the abbreviation your country is using.
- Rexxar 7y ago> notice all the other (non-US) countries in the list using .gov.<two letter country code>? no, Spanish speaking countries use "gob"
- SilasX 7y agoSorry, most. The point stands. And Spanish legitimately does not have a v in its word for government. French does, and only adds the u to signal difference, equally as absurd as leaving the z in your abbreviation of organization to indicate which variant of English you’re using.
- seszett 7y agoNo, the abbreviation of "gouvernement" cannot be "gov" in French because it doesn't have the same pronunciation. It can only be "gouv" as those two vowels cannot be separated for abbreviations in French. It could be "gou" although it sounds a bit weird. Also, what the other countries do doesn't matter much, because.gouv.fr is for websites for French citizens, not Irish or Australian citizens. The thing is, you put yourself from an English speaking perspective, but France doesn't. English isn't a reference from the point of view of France, so there is no reason not to use French terms. France also uses .asso.fr instead of .org, for example.
- Symbiote 7y agoOn your link it shows New Zealand uses .govt.nz.
- SilasX 7y agoGood catch, TIL! Still, the vast majority of those countries use .gov.<their two-letter country code>.
- Rexxar 7y ago> one is also a valid abbreviation of their language's word. No, you can't abbreviate "ou" with "o", it's a different sound. Similarly in English, you don't use "t" for "th" in abbreviation (maths vs mats).
- mfer 7y agoDon't forget it starts out with "universal". It's not just bound to Earth. We have greater aims than that ;-)
- tialaramex 7y agoIt really is bound to Earth. It's defined based on TAI (which needs a bunch of atomic clocks all sat on Earth's surface or adjusted to allow for altitude) and the International Earth Rotation Service (which measures how quickly the Earth spins) so as to have it track TAI over the short term, but occasionally inject "leap seconds" so as to track the spin of the planet and keep the relationship between apparent sun position and UTC as expected. Time isn't really universal by its nature, but at human scale and in a relatively small place like Earth you can mostly pretend it doesn't matter, and UTC helps do that.
- mfer 7y agoNext time I'll have to remember my sarcasm closing tag.
- lacker 7y agoIt’s harder to make acronyms that are a compromise between English and Chinese.