--- Forwarded Message from Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 22:31:42 -0700
>From: Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]>
>To: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #5453.5 spelling questions (!)
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Originator-Info: login-token=Mulberry:01YhRz2cZ55T7oVOVFosasV6elnkviiQ==

Although it is dangerous to correct, or even modify anything Mike says,
there is a coda to this story.  I read the report of a consortium of the
DVD powerful- computer hardware and software companies, home theater
hardware people, and media content producers (movie studios), who had a
lengthy debate over the "official" meaning of DVD.  The computer side
mostly wanted the "V" to stand for "Versatile," while the others wanted to
use "Video," so as not to confuse the customers.  After months of
discussion, they found a solution- DVD stands for nothing!  DVD means DVD.
It is not an acronym, but a name.  Thus decided the powers that were.

This is a fairly lame outcome from a multi-month, many
million-dollar-company consortium compromise, and this kind of decision has
little effect on language usage.  But I think it reflects reality.  You
almost never see DVD written out as anything.  Within a few years, DVD will
be in everyones head as the three syllable name for that little plastic
thing that plays movies and does other neat stuff, you know, like in
computers?  Nobody will be eager to substitute the misleading seven
syllable expansion "Digital Video Disc" nor the vague seven syllable
"Digital Versatile Disc."

This has already happened with the term "CD."  Although people know it once
stood for "Compact Disc," it is now a word by itself.  Most people think
and speak of CDs without any mental reference to the term "compact disc."
In common usage, I think they are closer to synonyms than
acronym/expansion.

> --- Forwarded Message from "Michael Bush" <[log in to unmask]> ---

> DVD is the correct representation.  It stands (post hoc) for
> Digital Versatile Disc.  It used to be Digital Video Disc,

Derek Roff
Language Learning Center, Ortega Hall Rm 129, University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131  505/277-4804 fax 505/277-3885
Internet: [log in to unmask]