Semantics: URL and RAM... It's a Teaching Moment

There are far too many things not to know in technology, providing excellent opportunities to embarrass yourself among Geeks.

An obvious example of this becomes a lesson in English usage: the difference between an abbreviation (Why, oh why does "abbreviation" have TWO "Bs"? That makes no sense.) and an initialism.

The omniscient Wikipedia provides a good explanation, but in short, you pronounce an abbreviation and you spell out the letters of an initialism. For example, you say:

"U", "R", "L" for URL (not "earl") (that's your Uniform Resource Locator), but you say
"ram" (as in goat) for RAM (Random Access Memory).

There are lots of examples of these acronym/initialism ambiguities in techno-jargon, providing plenty of opportunities to embarrass yourself in front of your students. Try to get them right.

TTFN.