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Nancy Hoft asked for a tiebreaker: is "bit" an acronym, a contraction,
or an abbreviation. "Contraction" is your best bet, to whit:
All abbreviations (shortening of words) and acronyms (initialisms and
pronouncable words, both) are contractions; in the former case, the
contraction occurs by truncating the word, whereas in the latter, you
are generally truncating and combining several words.
--Geoff Hart #8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of
our reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.
