The correct abbreviation for Firefox is ‘Fx’, not ‘FF’(website-archive.mozilla.org)
website-archive.mozilla.org
The correct abbreviation for Firefox is ‘Fx’, not ‘FF’
http://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-US/firefox/releases/1.5.html#FAQ
18 comments
So, the correct nomenclature here is "preferred" rather than "correct"?
Or is "preferred" a "preferred" word, but "correct" is allowable?
Or is "preferred" a "preferred" word, but "correct" is allowable?
As an aside to your edit, I have also seen "different than" used more and more often of late. I'm not sure if it is an Americanism that I was just unaware of. It's not that "different than" is wrong, it's just different from what I'm used to!
In Year Eight at school, I had an English teacher who liked to mix things up a little. One time, I was answering a question in class, and I used "different to" or "different from" or something -- maybe even "different than", I don't remember now. The teacher told me to stand up, then explained that there was a right form and a wrong form for this, and got everyone to pick sides -- "than" here, "from" there and "to" over there. Then I bamboozled him, because I noticed that the smartest girl in the class, a gorgeous lass who gloried in the surname of Snodgrass, had picked a different side, so I reasoned that she was more likely right and defected to the same group. The teacher was deeply annoyed that I apparently didn't have the courage of my convictions; my point, which I understood instinctively even at that age, was that embarrassing a student to make a point was a totally shit way to educate people, and if he was going to place such a high premium on game playing in class, he could call me Kobayashi Maru.
To this day, I still can't remember which is correct - "than", "from" or "to". But I can remember the look on his face, and the fact that after that he stuck with slightly less aggravating teaching methods.
To this day, I still can't remember which is correct - "than", "from" or "to". But I can remember the look on his face, and the fact that after that he stuck with slightly less aggravating teaching methods.
Yes, "different than" is an Americanism.
I believe that "different from" is most common across all dialects of English: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxdiffer.html (Note: This only compares UK English and American English, not "all dialects".)
I believe that "different from" is most common across all dialects of English: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxdiffer.html (Note: This only compares UK English and American English, not "all dialects".)
For the most part, I don't think these kinds of issues are caused by disagreements in linguistic philosophy. Most people are taught language in a way which encourages them to think in a prescriptivist way, and they simply never learn about descriptivism.
And thence comes most of the really stupid arguments on Facebook that aren't about guns or Firefly.
This is why I long to own a t-shirt bearing the words "Practising Peddant".
This is why I long to own a t-shirt bearing the words "Practising Peddant".
The whole planet says "FF". This makes it de facto the correct/preferred/official abbr
I think they need to change their FAQ. I've never seen it abbreviated as Fx -- only as FF.
Agreed FF is more popular than Fx, but Firefox OS is mostly abbreviated as FxOS[which IMO is much cooler than FFOS]
The link goes to an old FAQ in their website archive.
I have only ever see Fx being used to abbreviate the words "Effects" and "Framework". Never for Firefox. However, Wikipedia confirms that people do use it for Firefox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FX
I do see it as Fx here and there.
The FAQ says preferred not correct though. But it feels unnatural. Having media background FX for me at least means "effects" (as in special effects). Firefox may be written as a single word but there are two words in there and the natural way would be FF IMO. I have seen someone use Fx once and it confused the heck out of me... sorry Mozilla, I will use FF..
I think they should use then FFx
(I don't remember an abbreviation using the first and last letters, though)
(I don't remember an abbreviation using the first and last letters, though)
They do say Fx and not FX which would appear different to me, although I'm sure many would assume Fx == FX.
They do write Fx and not FX but I can't see how they would differentiate Fx from FX in a spoken conversation.
Do you abbreviate when speaking about Firefox?
It happens, yes. But it might be because of the specificities of my first language (french). I don't think I would abbreviate it when speaking english though. My mistake, I should have taken that into account.
Searching "FX" on Google brings nothing related to Firefox, not a single link, but "FF" brings Firefox download page. Sorry but I'm going to stick with FF.
…and “GIF” is supposed to be pronounced “JIFF”
…and “npm” doesn’t really stand for “Node Package Manager”
sigh
sigh
From wikipedia:
Contrary to the belief of many, "npm" is not in fact an abbreviation for "Node Package Manager." It is a recursive bacronymic abbreviation for "npm is not an acronym." (If it was "ninaa", then it would be an acronym, and thus incorrectly named.)
So the author named it npm for node package manager, then wanted to sound clever so he said it doesn't stand for that? He could just as easily called it "aslkdjghasjklg" and said it's an abbreviated version of "aslkdjghasjklg is not an acronym. And that would still be dumb.
It's like inventing a device to produce collimated beams of light, and then naming it "laser" for "laser is not an acronym" when everyone knows what it actually means.
Contrary to the belief of many, "npm" is not in fact an abbreviation for "Node Package Manager." It is a recursive bacronymic abbreviation for "npm is not an acronym." (If it was "ninaa", then it would be an acronym, and thus incorrectly named.)
So the author named it npm for node package manager, then wanted to sound clever so he said it doesn't stand for that? He could just as easily called it "aslkdjghasjklg" and said it's an abbreviated version of "aslkdjghasjklg is not an acronym. And that would still be dumb.
It's like inventing a device to produce collimated beams of light, and then naming it "laser" for "laser is not an acronym" when everyone knows what it actually means.
Maybe you need to get your satire detector checked?
Wikipedia is not really a place for satire.
Everyone I've ever met pronounces it jif as in the peanut butter as that's what the creator intended and disseminated way back when.
I've never met anyone who pronounces it that way; we all use a hard g like "graphics." I'm curious if this differs regionally like most pronunciations, or if it's spread in different patterns because it's mainly said online.
I went to college at Binghamton in upstate New York in the 90s when I first heard it said. And the mantra was "choosy developers choose GIF" based off the catchy "choosy moms choose JIF" (peanut butter) advertisements that were popular here in the US at the time. And it was just 'developers' not designers at the time since the web was so new and people talked about as web development, not design. I never heard it with a hard G until years later, mostly from younger web designers.
I'm sure they'll convince everyone in the world before the end of time.
I don't think there's many situations where you'd have to abbreviate Firefox anyway, it's not a large word to begin with. Internet Explorer as IE I can understand, it's large and compounding it is useful - but we don't abbreviate Opera or Chrome?
All the browsers could be abbreviated to COFFIE. if it wasn't for IE we'd have a perfect acronym there. Darn IE messing things up again...
The only places I've seen this abbreviation(and that too, mostly FF for Firefox, but FxOS for Firefox OS) is their IRC dev channels and/or mailing lists.
Ah I didn't think of the OS, that's a good point!
I've abbreviated Chrome to Ch (and Firefox to Fx).
In related news they would prefer we use FrskQet instead of FAQ
I wonder if they were inspired by Steve Wilhite (creator of the "jif").
It's definitely going in the same file as that and mebibytes.
FF is faster to type. I doubt most people who abbreviated it will change to Fx.
I think it's too late to expect any change, the webpage is from 2005, for FF 1.5 ;-)
Ys, bcuz if its aster to type its best
I'm looking through their bug reports and developer message boards all of the time... and I've never seen anyone abbreviate it as anything other than "FF".
Ugh, shut up, nobody cares. Hey, maybe start taking care of your God-awful rendering engine and CPU cycles instead of wasting time on stuff like this?
Good luck with that, Mozilla.
Well, that page is wrong.
What about Fifx :)
What was the point of showing this here?
(Edit: "different to" sounded wrong. I could never remember which way that goes.)