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I think the problem is that acronym is not about reading silently but reading aloud. So if you said EksEmEl i.e. spelling out each letter then you are using an abbreviation. But if you said Eksml i.e. pronouncing it as a word then you are using it more as an acrostic. However, a really unsuccessful one in English at least, because the ksml combination is not idiomatic in English and certainly not euphonious: we don't see towns like Axmill or Pigsmill AFAIK. Similarly, CEO if pronounced by spelling out each letter see-ee-oh is an abbreviation, but if you attempt to read it as a word, see-oh, it is an acronym too. (I don't know that anyone does that.) So I think it is futile to discern acronymicity from merely looking at the letters: it is how they get read that is the determining factor. So RADAR and LASER are definitely acronyms because we conventionally read them aloud as words perfectly easily. So my vote is that XML is not an acronym, and that this can be empirically tested by observing whether guinea pigs read out each letter or try to make a continuous sound with it. Cheers Rick Jelliffe
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