🚀 go-pugleaf

davidf@mks.com (David J. Fiander) writes:

>According to 70465.203@compuserve.com:
>>Neither of your counter examples applies. They are both *acronyms*
>>constructed from the initial letters of a phrase. In such cases, prounciation
>>is pretty much determined by what it looks like.
>>
>>On the other hand, "sysop" is formed by combining *syllables*. It's in
>>effect a contraction of the words "system operator". And the path may 
>>have been that system got frequently shortened to "sys" and operator
>>got shortened to "op". *Then* they got combined.

No point in arguing about this anymore.  What is "proper" is majority rule.
I've been BBSing since June 1985 and everyone I know who runs a BBS refers
to themselves or other "system operators" as SIS-OPS.  Just because someone
writes an article in the New York Times doesn't give them anymore credibility
than Joe Blow in the apartment adjoining mine.  Most of what is printed in
newspapers and magazines about BBSing (and sharware too, for that matter) is
deficient in one way or another.  Much of what we read (if we don't read it
online) is also quite dated.
	One of my favorite peeves is that PC Magazine didn't do a review of
Phil Katz' PKZIP program until relatively recently and they gave me the im-
pression that they thought it was a new program -- they don't review other
programs that are over five years old; my point is that programs BBSers have
taken for granted for YEARS are treated as "new hat" when they "suddenly"
get "DISCOVERED" by old-time pc users who are brand new to BBSing.  It totally
irks me that they want to give other old-time pc users who do not BBS the 
impression that such-and-such program would never have been "DISCOVERED" if
if weren't for them.

	-=- Tony Safina -=- disk!tony@uunet.UU.NET -=-