acronym Element

 

Module

The acronym element is an inline element declared by the XHTML 1.1 Text Module (Inline Phrasal)

Elements in the Text Module are:
span | br (Inline Structural Support Module)
em | strong | q | cite | abbr | acronym | code | var | kbd | samp | dfn (Inline Phrasal Support Module)
div | p (Block Structural Support Module)
h1 - h6 | blockquote | pre | address (Block Phrasal Support Module)

Description

This element is used to indicate that the enclosed text is an acronym, i.e. a word formed from joining the first letter (or first few letters) of several words. There is much debate as to when to use the acronym element and when to use the more general but related abbr element.
Considering the strict definition of 'acronym' in the *Chambers Dictionary Online, I am of the opinion that acronym should only be used if the abbreviation is usually pronounced as a word - e.g. laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) - rather than as a series of letters - e.g. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) or RAF (Royal Air Force). In this latter case, the abbr element should be used instead. It is still common practice, however, to misuse acronym - especially since IE6 does not support the abbr element.

Often, a browser will render text within an acronym with some kind of line underneath, usually dotted, and will pop up a tooltip containing the full text when the mouse hovers over the element. No styles have been applied to the example acronym elements above so they are rendered using your browser's default behaviour. My version of Konqueror (3.5.4) automatically styles acronym as font-variant:small-caps (but does not place a line beneath the text).

See also the abbr element.

#REQUIRED Attributes

There are no #REQUIRED attributes on the acronym element.

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Specific Attributes

There are no specific attributes declared on the acronym element.

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Common Attributes

From the Core Attribute Collection

class [ type NMTOKENS ]

One or more space separated classes

id [ type ID ]

A unique identifier for the element

style [ type CDATA ], from the Style Attribute Module (deprecated)

Element-specific styles

title [ type Text ]

For an acronym element, the full text corresponding to the acronym should be specified in the title attribute (in some user agents this may appear as a "tooltip" when the mouse hovers over the element)

xmlns [ type URI - #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' ]

XML namespace

From the I18N Attribute Collection

dir [ type Enumeration (ltr | rtl) ], from the Bi-directional Text Module

Left-to-right or right-to-left directionality

xml:lang [ type LanguageCode ]

A language code for the element

From the Events Attribute Collection

All attributes in the Events Attribute Collection are supported:
onclick, ondblclick, onmousedown, onmouseup, onmouseover, onmousemove, onmouseout, onkeypress, onkeydown, onkeyup

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Content Model

The Content Model for the acronym element is:

( #PCDATA | Inline.mix )*

See Content Model & Nesting for information about Content Model syntax and Nesting Groups.

Valid children of acronym

• #PCDATA
• From the Text Module: abbr, acronym, br, cite, code, dfn, em, kbd, q, samp, span, strong, var
• From the Hypertext Module: a
• From the Forms Module: button, input, label, select, textarea
• From the Images Module: img
• From the Presentation Module: b, big, i, small, sub, sup, tt
• From the Client-side Image Map Module: map
• From the Scripting Module: noscript, script
• From the Edit Module: del, ins
• From the Bi-directional Text Module: bdo
• From the Object Module: object
• From the Ruby Annotation Module: ruby

Valid parents of acronym

• From the Text Module: abbr, acronym, address, cite, code, dfn, div, em, h1 - h6, kbd, p, pre, q, samp, span, strong, var
• From the Hypertext Module: a
• From the List Module: dd, dt, li
• From the Tables Module: caption, td, th
• From the Forms Module: button, fieldset, label, legend
• From the Presentation Module: b, big, i, small, sub, sup, tt
• From the Edit Module: del, ins
• From the Bi-directional Text Module: bdo
• From the Object Module: object
• From the Ruby Annotation Module: rb, rt