Cobol/COBOL, tomaytoe/tamahtoe?

COBOL is the preferred

COBOL is the preferred spelling as specified in the complete "acknowledgment" that is normally printed in whole, or in part, in any reference to the language. In short, COBOL is the name of a computer language, and Cobol is just a word not associated with the language or its specifications.

With the casual way it is mentioned in the press, I usually assume that "Cobol" is being used by someone who knows very little, if anything, about the language or its formal specifications, including the correct spelling as used in the DOD (FIPS) , ANSI, and ISO standards.

COBOL is also an acronym,

COBOL is also an acronym, and I guess it hasn't been enough years since I was a COBOL prorammer, because "Cobol" still makes me cringe to the point where I can't bear to read it written that way. yikes.

Definition of acronym:

ac‧ro‧nym  /ˈækrənɪm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ak-ruh-nim] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun 1. a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation.
2. an acrostic.
–verb (used with object) 3. to make an acronym of: The committee's name has been acronymed MIKE.

Joyce Carpenter, you are

Joyce Carpenter, you are just plain wrong. I'm going through ever document, manual and textbooks I've ever owned. Nowhere is the term "Cobol" ever used. Ask IBM about their manuals. Ask Murach about their textbooks.

It's only been around for 40yrs. If the NY Times makes this mistake, that's understandable, but an IT publication, now that's embarrassing.

Sol Lederman: Oops. Using

Sol Lederman: Oops. Using Object instead of Oriented was completely my fault. I should have copy/pasted from the email that I got from the copy desk since it does have Oriented rather than Object. I've corrected it above so as not to perpetuate the error. Thanks.

As to what counts as an acronym and what counts as an abbreviation, I don't think there's general agreement. Most of the computer industry seems to think that every tla or fla is an acronym. Personally, I've always liked keeping the term acronym for pronounceable words, especially those that convey a relevant meaning as in Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

One very quick search returned different results. It looks like the New York Times uses Cobol; the Wall Street Journal uses COBOL.

Notice also that whether or not something is acronym apparently doesn't determine its capitalization according to the Merriam-Webster citation above: "a word (as NATO, radar, or laser)."

Thomas Knoedler: I'm not sure what our copy desk would say about all of the languages mentioned above. I think there are rules that are generally followed and exceptions. Then there are also terms that begin life as acronyms and turn into words (radar).

COBOL Gold Mine: Out of curiousity, are you getting enough click-throughs from CW to warrant this silliness? ;-)

Mr. Lederman, you are 100%

Mr. Lederman, you are 100% correct.

COBOL stands for COmmon Business Oriented Language. In publishing our first reply to CW we were a bit in rush to respond to the CW copy desk who claimed that COBOL is not a true acronym. In doing so and failing to give closer attention to the phrase and to in order to reduce typing efforts, we copied and pasted the original quote in their posting above "Since Cobol is a short form of Common Business Object Language, Cobol is not a true acronym." - Incidentally this further demonstrate and enhance their poor knowledge of COBOL, the King of programming languages.

Hence the mistakes that can be duplicated and spread in rushed replies and the laziness engendered by the cut/paste facility in the “modern” computing platform.

We apologize for doing so.

COBOL Gold Mine
ILS International

I'm pretty sure Cobol stands

I'm pretty sure Cobol stands for "Common Business ORIENTED Language". I'm interested to know how CW writers got that "O" stands for "object."

A search of ibm.com for the quoted phrase "common business object language" finds 0 matches whereas a search for "common business oriented language" finds 87 matches.

And what, pray tell, does

And what, pray tell, does the Computerworld copy desk think of the lanaguages known as Fortran, Algol (or ALGOL, which is derived from International Algorithmic Language), APL (A Programming Language), LISP (List Processing Language) or SNOBOL (which shows how old I am!)

The rest of the English

The rest of the English world agrees with us regarding the classification of COBOL as acronym:

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
acronym
One entry found for acronym.

Main Entry: ac·ro·nym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
: a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters : INITIALISM
- ac·ro·nym·ic /"a-kr&-'ni-mik/ adjective
- ac·ro·nym·i·cal·ly /-mi-k(&-)lE/ adverb

We believe that the people

We believe that the people running the CW copy desk are not quite knowledgeable about the definition of acronym.
COBOL is a true acronym.

Definition of the word acronym in Encarta Dictionary: English (North America)

“A word formed from the initials or other parts of several words, for example, “NATO,” from the initial letters of “North Atlantic Treaty Organization”

Since Cobol is a short form of Common Business Object Language, COBOL is a true acronym. Cobol is NOT. Because Co is part of Common, hence the style guide at CW calls for Cobol is an in-house standard, and cannot be imposed on the rest of the good English speaking community.

COBOL Gold Mine
ILS International
www.ils-international.com