Re[2]: Articles with Initialisms

[Joyce Flaherty <flahertj -at- SMTPGW -dot- LIEBERT -dot- COM>]

2/23/96 GMT, Katharine Woods wrote:

>I've had this (pronounciation) problem when documenting files
>by extension names. For
>example, ".INI" and ".EXE" files. Some people pronounce these as
>"dot ini" and "dot exe" (requiring an "a"), others as "ini" and "exe"
>(requiring an "an") and both groups get upset if the filename
>extension is preceded by the inappropriate article.

I agree with Sue Gallagher, the INI file works.

FYI that might help you to take a decision:

The INI convention comes from the mainframe environment.
Before you can do anything with your program, you
have to INItialize your registers.  Normally a company puts
an INIT macro to good old maclib to do this for you.  At the
end of your program, you clean up after yourself.  Of course,
FINIT is going to do this for you.

In our PC environment, Mr Gates initializes for you with the INI
files.  Sometimes Mr Gates cleans up for you.  Sometimes he does
not.  If you had the FIN files, you wouldn't have to routinely
delete your *.TMP files in \windows, \windows\system, and other
places.

More FYI for the non-prgrammer types:  EXE is the mainframe EXEC.
BAT is the mainframe batch file or Job Control Language (JCL) you
use to send a job.  There are many borrowed terms.  These are
a few you see every day.

joyce flaherty
flahertj -at- smtpwg -dot- liebert -dot- com