[37370] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: foreign upstarts dare to use their own languages [was: Re:black hat
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric A. Hall)
Wed May 9 20:15:40 2001
Message-ID: <3AF9C9C1.85D42507@ehsco.com>
Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 15:50:42 -0700
From: "Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com>
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To: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
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> > Think about the acronyms we use in network-speak every day - how
> > many of them stand for phrases in a language other than English?
>
> CCITT, and of course the favorite ISO, International Organization for
> Standardization.
ISO is not an acronym
http://www.iso.ch/infoe/intro.htm
Many people will have noticed a seeming lack of
correspondence between the official title when used in full,
International Organization for Standardization, and the
short form, ISO. Shouldn't the acronym be "IOS"? Yes, if
it were an acronym – which it is not.
In fact, "ISO" is a word, derived from the Greek isos,
meaning "equal", which is the root of the prefix "iso-" that
occurs in a host of terms, such as "isometric" (of equal
measure or dimensions) and "isonomy" (equality of laws,
or of people before the law).
From "equal" to "standard", the line of thinking that led to
the choice of "ISO" as the name of the organization is easy
to follow. In addition, the name ISO is used around the
world to denote the organization, thus avoiding the
plethora of acronyms resulting from the translation of
"International Organization for Standardization" into the
different national languages of members, e.g. IOS in
English, OIN in French (from Organisation internationale
de normalisation). Whatever the country, the short form of
the Organization's name is always ISO.
Sounds revisionist but I'll buy it.
As for CCITT, well, what do you expect. They can't even get phone numbers
in a common presentation form. :/
--
Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/
