Overview

I have recently been wondering about the use of abbreviations which

are built from the first letter of a word followed by a number and the

last letter. The number represents the count of letters between the

start and end letter. Thus accessibility becomes

a11y. This came to light (to me anyway) during an email

exchange with Mike Ray regarding the accessibility issues on the tag

index page on the HPR site. The website issues were resolved, but I was

left wondering how useful the term a11y is, or whether it

just jars with me!

According to the Wikipedia article

this type of word is known as a numeronym, but they may also be

referred to as alphanumeric acronyms, alphanumeric

abbreviations, or numerical contractions.

As the Wikipedia article notes these types of abbreviations are

almost always used to refer to their computing sense — such as

g11n for globalisation — in the context of computing,

not the general context.

Looking at a11y as an

example

While I sympathise with the motivation behind using

'a11y' to mean accessibility, I do find it odd and

counter-intuitive. I often find myself pondering the acceptability of

this type of abbreviation. How many other words in common English fit

patterns like this I wonder? Quite a few I would expect. How does this

affect the admissibility of such abbreviations?

Not only are they adventurously strange to my simple brain, but I

find them to be aesthetically displeasing. My experiments with the

standard Linux dictionary looking for words that fit this pattern I find

affirmatively supportive of this view. I describe this experiment

later.

Algebraically, it is to be expected that there are many dictionary

words of 13 characters which start with 'a' and end with

'y'. Looking at them allegorically, such numeronyms convey

little meaning except in very limited contexts since the motivation

seems to be to reduce the need to type long words. Alternatively, if

they were accepted by data entry software and expanded automatically a

better case could be made for applicability, but only one word could be

assigned to a numeronym.

In my mind there is a certain artificiality in the use of these

abbreviations.

You might wonder at the weird rambling nature of the above section -

this was my (small) joke to try and use many of the words that match the

a11y pattern.

Here’s the result of transforming them:

While I sympathise with the motivation behind

'a11y' to mean accessibility, I do find it odd and

counter-intuitive. I often find myself pondering the a11y

of this type of abbreviation. How many other words in common English fit

these patterns I wonder? Quite a few I would expect. How does this

affect the a11y of such abbreviations?

Not only are they a11y strange to my simple brain, but I

find them to be a11y displeasing. My experiments with the

standard Linux dictionary looking for words that fit this pattern I find

a11y supportive of this view. I describe this experiment

later.

A11y, it is to be expected that there are many

dictionary words of 13 characters which start with 'a' and

end with 'y'. Looking at them a11y, such

numeronyms convey little meaning except in very limited contexts since

the motivation seems to be to reduce the need to type long words.

A11y, if they were accepted by data entry software and

expanded a11y a better case could be made for

a11y, but only one word could be assigned to a