Re^6: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community

in reply to Re^5: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community
in thread PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community

It's in this sense that I say it's an acronym. Could you enlighten me how that's wrong?

Perl is a Backronym. In fact, it's even listed in the List of backronyms.

However, even if it was merely an acronym, the official spelling is still not capitalized—any more than "rom", "ram", "smog", "radar", "laser", "sonar", or "scuba" are capitalized now (which are all arguably acronyms, not backronyms).

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

Comment on Re^6: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community
Re^7: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community by TimToady (Parson) on Nov 25, 2005 at 17:47 UTC
More than just being a single backronym, in adding its second gloss "perl" was intentionally turned into a backronym generator. It would be interesting linguistically to categorize backronyms into those that are productive and those that are fossilized. Certainly "perl" is still productive: "Polymorphic Existential Recursive Lambdas" is just the lastest one.	[reply]
Re^8: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community by tilly (Archbishop) on Nov 25, 2005 at 22:23 UTC
Is there a list somewhere online of these? Adding a few more off of the top of my head: Perl's an Extremely Reliable Language People Earn Respect Lazily Perfection Enters Real Life Programmers Everywhere Relish Leisure And so on..	[reply]
Re^9: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community by merlyn (Sage) on Nov 25, 2005 at 22:56 UTC
Provides Employment for Randal's Lectures. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.	[reply]
Re^9: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Feb 28, 2006 at 21:41 UTC
There are some more at Perl Etymology, a Recondite List. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]


We don't bite newbies here... much
	PerlMonks

Re^6: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community

How many continents have you visited?