1.2.5. Simple Terms and Complex Terms
Different types of terms, or terminological units, are used to label specialized concepts.
Simple terms consist of just one word (compound or derived). Complex terms have two or more words and form a terminological phrase.
abbreviations are shortened forms of a simple or complex term - letters, syllables or words are omitted from the original term.
acronyms are abbreviations of a complex term, made up of (mostly initial) letters or syllables of its components and pronounced as a single word.
Initialisms are abbreviations of a complex term made up of the initial letters of its components, each letter being pronounced separately.
Interestingly, complex terms may evolve over time to a shorter form. For example, the acronym "RADAR" was made for the complex term "Radio Detecting and Ranging",
and eventually the acronym became the simple term "radar".
Examples
The following table gives examples of different types of terms:
| Simple Terms |
budget, protection, telework, stylus, hyperlink, desktop |
| Complex Terms |
desktop publishing, user-friendly, zip disk |
| Abbreviations |
flu (influenza), lab (laboratory) |
| Acronyms |
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) |
| Initialisms |
UN (United Nations), ATA (American Translators Association) |
Exercise
Read the following text, then answer the questions about identifying types of terms.
An AGP3.0 graphics tunnel enabling stunning graphics performance onto platforms implementing high-speed technology has been introduced. This processor is an AGP3.0-compliant graphics controller offering performance modes up to AGP-8X. The tunnel function provides connection capability to other downstream technology devices, allowing greater system flexibility.
As shown in Figure 1, the front-end interface provides a configurable 16-bit wide communication path to the host, offering up to 6.4GB/s of bandwidth. Similarly, the back-end interface provides a configurable 8-bit wide communication path to a downstream device, offering up to 1.6GB/s of bandwidth.
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