Origins of the term 'WYSIWYG?
Fred Cisin
cisin at xenosoft.com
Mon Jan 16 17:08:14 CST 2017
On Mon, 16 Jan 2017, allison wrote:
> That lead to WYSIWYG pronounced as wizzywhig, from the former what you see is
> what you get. There were variations
> as well.
Good point!
The phrase is obviously older, and probably much older than Flip Wilson.
BUT, the acronym is much more recent. I first heard it as an acronym from
Apple people, but I don't contest Allison's contention that DEC had
already been using the acronym.
A phrase needs to get a certain level of recognition, as a phrase rather
than a description, before it gets adopted as an acronym.
Obvious exceptions include "contrived" or "back" acronyms (bac[k]ronyms),
where words are chosen to try to fit an acronym that was already chosen.
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