89-507: The Minnesota Valley Transit Authority , also known by the acronym MVTA , is a public transportation agency that serves seven communities in the southern portion of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. The agency provides fixed-route and demand-responsive transit within the service area of the communities and to select destinations in the region. MVTA was one of several transit agencies created by suburban communities in
178-512: A 1 ⁄ 4 mile (400 m) away. Consideration was given to locating the Orange Line terminus at the MVTA station but the existing amount of buses and riders encouraged Metro Transit to locate the station elsewhere. Express bus service from Burnsville to downtown Minneapolis has existed since at least 1972. Early park-and-rides were located near I-35W and Minnesota Highway 13. Service
267-466: A demand-responsive transit service. The service launched June 3, 2019, with service just in Savage and western Burnsville but has expanded over time. Service is offered seven days a week and serves the cities of Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Rosemount, and Savage. The service is offered via a smartphone application where customers/users can book rides. In January 2022, around 6,700 rides were taken using
356-428: A numeronym . For example, "i18n" abbreviates " internationalization ", a computer-science term for adapting software for worldwide use; the "18" represents the 18 letters that come between the first and the last in "internationalization". Similarly, "localization" can be abbreviated "l10n"; " multilingualization " "m17n"; and " accessibility " "a11y". In addition to the use of a specific number replacing that many letters,
445-645: A single word ("television" or "transvestite", for instance), and is in general spelled without punctuation (except in the plural). Although "PS" stands for the single English word " postscript " or the Latin postscriptum , it is often spelled with periods ("P.S.") as if parsed as Latin post scriptum instead. The slash ('/', or solidus ) is sometimes used to separate the letters in an acronym, as in "N/A" ("not applicable, not available") and "c/o" ("care of"). Inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented according to their letter count as
534-507: A 1940 translation of a novel by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger . It is an unsettled question in English lexicography and style guides whether it is legitimate to use the word acronym to describe forms that use initials but are not pronounced as a word. While there is plenty of evidence that acronym is used widely in this way, some sources do not acknowledge this usage, reserving
623-625: A different meaning. Medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms, including efforts by the American Academy of Dermatology. Acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices: for example the colors of the rainbow are ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). They are also used as mental checklists: in aviation GUMPS stands for gas-undercarriage-mixture-propeller-seat belts. Other mnemonic acronyms include CAN SLIM in finance, PAVPANIC in English grammar, and PEMDAS in mathematics. It
712-403: A lawsuit over not renewing the contract for operating the route. The Metro Orange Line is a high bus rapid transit line from Burnsville to downtown Minneapolis. Transit improvements along I-35W were studied for decades with different alignments and modes of transit considered including bus rapid transit and light rail. By 2005, plans were solidified on bus rapid transit improvements. Progress on
801-781: A medial decimal point . Particularly in British and Commonwealth English , all such punctuation marking acronyms and other capitalized abbreviations is now uncommon and considered either unnecessary or incorrect. The presence of all-capital letters is now thought sufficient to indicate the nature of the UK , the EU , and the UN . Forms such as the U.S.A. for "the United States of America " are now considered to indicate American or North American English . Even within those dialects, such punctuation
890-407: A period when the letters are pronounced individually, as in " K.G.B. ", but not when pronounced as a word, as in " NATO ". The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme. When a multiple-letter abbreviation is formed from a single word, periods are in general not used, although they may be common in informal usage. "TV", for example, may stand for
979-436: A single word, such as NATO (as distinct from B-B-C )" but adds later "In everyday use, acronym is often applied to abbreviations that are technically initialisms, since they are pronounced as separate letters." The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges the complexity ("Furthermore, an acronym and initialism are occasionally combined (JPEG), and the line between initialism and acronym is not always clear") but still defines
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#17327980231751068-478: A total project cost of $ 113 million. The Red Line operates largely in MVTA territory and MVTA operated the route from opening day on June 22, 2013 with funding eventually fully provided by the Metropolitan Council . The Metropolitan Council determined it could operate the service cheaper than paying MVTA to provide the service and began operations on December 5, 2020. MVTA threatened the council with
1157-515: A twentieth-century phenomenon. Linguist David Wilton in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends claims that "forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth- (and now twenty-first-) century phenomenon. There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is colinderies or colinda , an acronym for
1246-502: A word rather than as a sequence of letters. In this sense, NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / is an acronym but USA / j uː ɛ s ˈ eɪ / is not. The broader sense of acronym , ignoring pronunciation, is its original meaning and in common use. Dictionary and style-guide editors dispute whether the term acronym can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced as words, and they do not agree on acronym spacing , casing , and punctuation . The phrase that
1335-471: A word, an abbreviation is not an acronym." In contrast, some style guides do support it, whether explicitly or implicitly. The 1994 edition of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage defends the usage on the basis of a claim that dictionaries do not make a distinction. The BuzzFeed style guide describes CBS and PBS as "acronyms ending in S". Acronymy, like retronymy , is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for which there
1424-677: A word. American English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster , Dictionary.com's Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary as well as the British Oxford English Dictionary and the Australian Macquarie Dictionary all include a sense in their entries for acronym equating it with initialism , although The American Heritage Dictionary criticizes it with
1513-488: Is a question about how to pluralize acronyms. Often a writer will add an 's' following an apostrophe, as in "PC's". However, Kate L. Turabian 's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations , writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and "URLs" but "Ph.D.'s". The style guides of
1602-425: Is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation . For some, an initialism or alphabetism , connotes this general meaning, and an acronym is a subset with a narrower definition: an initialism pronounced as
1691-721: Is becoming increasingly uncommon. Some style guides , such as that of the BBC , no longer require punctuation to show ellipsis ; some even proscribe it. Larry Trask , American author of The Penguin Guide to Punctuation , states categorically that, in British English , "this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete." Nevertheless, some influential style guides , many of them American , still require periods in certain instances. For example, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends following each segment with
1780-411: Is common for grammatical contractions (e.g. don't , y'all , and ain't ) and for contractions marking unusual pronunciations (e.g. a'ight , cap'n , and fo'c'sle for "all right", "captain", and "forecastle"). By the early twentieth century, it was standard to use a full stop/period/point , especially in the cases of initialisms and acronyms. Previously, especially for Latin abbreviations , this
1869-631: Is especially important for paper media, where no search utility is available to find the first use.) It also gives students a convenient review list to memorize the important acronyms introduced in a textbook chapter. Expansion at first use and abbreviation keys originated in the print era, but they are equally useful for electronic text . While acronyms provide convenience and succinctness for specialists, they often degenerate into confusing jargon . This may be intentional, to exclude readers without domain-specific knowledge. New acronyms may also confuse when they coincide with an already existing acronym having
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#17327980231751958-464: Is generally said as two letters, but IPsec for Internet Protocol Security is usually pronounced as / ˌ aɪ ˈ p iː s ɛ k / or / ˈ ɪ p s ɛ k / , along with variant capitalization like "IPSEC" and "Ipsec". Pronunciation may even vary within a single speaker's vocabulary, depending on narrow contexts. As an example, the database programming language SQL is usually said as three letters, but in reference to Microsoft's implementation
2047-545: Is governed by an eight-member board, each member representing the governing body of a member jurisdiction, plus one at-large member and several ex officio members. In 2002, the City of Prior Lake withdrew membership from the MVTA. Prior Lake rejoined and the city of Shakopee joined MVTA in September 2014 with service in those areas beginning in 2015. In 2013, the MVTA started providing service to Lakeville , even though it
2136-399: Is not a part of the agency's service party. BlueXpress was a public transit service operated by the two cities of Prior Lake and Shakopee . It consisted of five bus routes, the 490, 491, 492, 496, and 498. In September 2014, the two cities reached a deal with the MVTA to merge their services. As of January 1, 2015, all former BlueXpress routes are now operated by the MVTA. MVTA Connect is
2225-459: Is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology , called a folk etymology , for a word. Such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis in historical linguistics , and are examples of language-related urban legends . For example, " cop " is commonly cited as being derived, it is presumed, from "constable on patrol", and " posh " from " port outward, starboard home ". With some of these specious expansions,
2314-567: Is the busiest park and ride location in the Twin Cities region and offers approximately 1,400 parking spaces. It is also a major transfer hub for routes operating the south of the Minnesota River . The station has indoor climate-controlled waiting, restrooms, lost and found , drinking fountains, vending machines, Go-To card sales, newspaper racks, and transit information. Due to high park and ride demand, MVTA moved some service to
2403-415: Is traditionally pronounced like the word sequel . In writing for a broad audience, the words of an acronym are typically written out in full at its first occurrence within a given text. Expansion At First Use (EAFU) benefits readers unfamiliar with the acronym. Another text aid is an abbreviation key which lists and expands all acronyms used, a reference for readers who skipped past the first use. (This
2492-516: The Colonial and Indian Exposition held in London in that year." However, although acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the twentieth century (as Wilton points out), the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly understood (and evidently not novel) in an Edgar Allan Poe story of the 1830s, " How to Write a Blackwood Article ", which includes
2581-634: The I-35W & Lake Street station which was created as part of the project. A groundbreaking ceremony for construction was held in July 2019 and service began on December 4, 2021. Metro Transit operates the Orange Line while MVTA operates a route that connects with the Orange Line at the southern terminus at the Burnsville Heart of the City station . Routes 460, 465, 470, 472, 477, and 479 make stops at
2670-926: The I-35W & Lake Street station . The Orange Link offers direct connections to the METRO Orange Line @ Burnsville Heart of the City station , with service to both Apple Valley Transit Station & Blackhawk P&R in Eagan. Route 436 offers service from the 46th Street Station on the METRO Blue Line to Ecolab Shuman Campus , The Omni Hotel , Viking Lakes Innovation Center & TCO Stadium, with limited service to Thomson Reuters in Eagan. Route 440 offers rush-hour service to VA Medical Center. Routes 442 & 444 connects riders to Burnsville Center Village . Route 447 offers bi-hourly service to & from Mystic Lake Casino at Apple Valley Transit Station Route 465 offers service from Burnsville to
2759-621: The Metro Orange Line and Metro Red Line , extend into MVTA service area but are operated by Metro Transit. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 911,100, or about 4,400 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2024. The six cities of Apple Valley, Burnsville, Eagan, Prior Lake, Rosemount, and Savage voted to leave the MTC service area in 1989. In the prior year, the cities paid roughly $ 3 million in property taxes to MTC but only received $ 2 million in transit service in return. By opting out of
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2848-623: The Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association prohibit apostrophes from being used to pluralize acronyms regardless of periods (so "compact discs" would be "CDs" or "C.D.s"), whereas The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage requires an apostrophe when pluralizing all abbreviations regardless of periods (preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's"). Possessive plurals that also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for example, "the C.D.'s' labels" (the labels of
2937-539: The Restoration witticism arranging the names of some members of Charles II 's Committee for Foreign Affairs to produce the "CABAL" ministry . OK , a term of disputed origin, dates back at least to the early nineteenth century and is now used around the world. Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms; some well-known examples from
3026-480: The "belief" that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue-in-cheek among many citers, as with "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" for " golf ", although many other (more credulous ) people have uncritically taken it for fact. Taboo words in particular commonly have such false etymologies: " shit " from "ship/store high in transit" or "special high-intensity training" and " fuck " from "for unlawful carnal knowledge", or "fornication under consent/command of
3115-463: The 160-character SMS limit, and to save time, acronyms such as "GF" ("girlfriend"), "LOL" ("laughing out loud"), and "DL" ("download" or "down low") have become popular. Some prescriptivists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity, or as failure to use "pure" or "proper" English. Others point out that languages have always continually changed , and argue that acronyms should be embraced as inevitable, or as innovation that adapts
3204-461: The 18 letters between the initial "i" and the final "n"). Authors of expository writing will sometimes capitalize or otherwise distinctively format the initials of the expansion for pedagogical emphasis (for example, writing: "the onset of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)" or "the onset of c ongestive h eart f ailure (CHF)"). Capitalization like this, however, conflicts with the convention of English orthography, which generally reserves capitals in
3293-489: The 350 spaces that had been used at a park and ride across the street. A second deck to the parking ramp expanded the number of spaces available and the station was serving 2,120 rides a day by 1998. Funding for an expansion costing $ 2.4 million was approved by the Metropolitan Council in 2000. By 2000 MVTA was focusing more on accommodating the growth of ridership which had grown 9-12% each year since opening
3382-545: The 370 space Heart of the City public ramp about a 1 ⁄ 2 mile (0.80 km) south in 2018. The Metropolitan Council's 2021 park-and-ride system report found 267 cars parked at the station compared to 1,116 in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Burnsville Heart of the City bus rapid transit station on the METRO Orange Line is located kitty-corner across Minnesota State Highway 13 , about
3471-466: The British press may render it "Nato"), but uses lower case in " Unicef " (from "United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund") because it is more than four letters, and to style it in caps might look ungainly (flirting with the appearance of "shouting capitals"). While abbreviations typically exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to"), this is not always
3560-651: The MTC system, they were allowed to spend 90% of the transit property taxes generated in their communities on transit service within their cities. Initially, goals were to add additional trips on routes with one trip so that each route had at least 3 trips, and creation of a dial-a-ride service. In March 1990, MVTA sought bids to operate their bus service, and in January 1991 routes began operating under MVTA branding while still being operated under contract by MTC. At first, no trip times or route changes were instituted but some changes were under consideration for spring or summer. At
3649-763: The Metropolitan Council. MVTA began operating an express bus route from Burnsville Transit Station to the I-494 strip in Bloomington and Edina. The route performed poorly, just as when MTC operated the same route but eventually eliminated it. The MVTA service area currently includes the cities of Apple Valley , Burnsville , Eagan , Lakeville and Rosemount in Dakota County ; and the cities of Savage , Shakopee and Prior Lake in Scott County . MVTA also provides service from these areas to key destinations in
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3738-1075: The South Bloomington Transit Center and the University of Minnesota . Route 475 offers direct service to both the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Zoo. Route 489 offers service from Union Depot in Downtown St. Paul to Ecolab Shuman Campus , Boulder Lakes Business Park and Thomson Reuters in Eagan. Route 490 offers service from Marschall Road Transit Station/Shakopee to the University of Minnesota. Route 495 runs as an all day, 7 day express between MSP Airport, Mall of America, Burnsville and Shakopee. Minnesota Valley Transit Authority operates several park and ride facilities, often with multistory parking ramps , indoor waiting areas, and transfer opportunities to other routes. Acronym An acronym
3827-410: The Twin Cities who chose to "opt-out" of the regular route transit system operated by Metro Transit 's predecessor, MTC. The suburban cities decided to opt-out due to disputes over the value of transit service they were receiving in receiving compared to the amount of property taxes they were paying. The original service area consisted of six suburbs but has now grown to seven suburbs all located south of
3916-520: The Twin Cities with opt-out communities losing $ 185,000 or roughly 5% of the total amount of money cut. At that time most opt-outs were operating under budgets that drew less than their 90% share of available transit property taxes. After consultation with the Regional Transit Board's attorney, budget cuts were tabled with the understanding that the Regional Transit Board had overstepped its authority to institute budget cuts and impinge on
4005-564: The U.S. Navy, is "COMCRUDESPAC", which stands for "commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific"; it is also seen as "ComCruDesPac". Inventors are encouraged to anticipate the formation of acronyms by making new terms "YABA-compatible" ("yet another bloody acronym"), meaning the term's acronym can be pronounced and is not an offensive word: "When choosing a new name, be sure it is 'YABA-compatible'." Acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with short message service (SMS), and instant messenger (IM). To fit messages into
4094-560: The United States are among the " alphabet agencies " (jokingly referred to as " alphabet soup ") created under the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt (himself known as "FDR"). Business and industry also coin acronyms prolifically. The rapid advance of science and technology also drives the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more pronounceable names. One representative example, from
4183-411: The acronym may use normal case rules, e.g. it would appear generally in lower case, but with an initial capital when starting a sentence or when in a title. Once knowledge of the words underlying such an acronym has faded from common recall, the acronym may be termed an anacronym . Examples of anacronyms are the words " scuba ", " radar ", and " laser ". The word "an acro nym" should not be confused with
4272-545: The acronym stands for is called its expansion . The meaning of an acronym includes both its expansion and the meaning of its expansion. The word acronym is formed from the Greek roots akro- , meaning 'height, summit, or tip', and -nym , 'name'. This neoclassical compound appears to have originated in German , with attestations for the German form Akronym appearing as early as 1921. Citations in English date to
4361-590: The adoption of acronyms was modern warfare, with its many highly technical terms. While there is no recorded use of military acronyms dating from the American Civil War (acronyms such as "ANV" for " Army of Northern Virginia " post-date the war itself), they became somewhat common in World War I , and by World War II they were widespread even in the slang of soldiers, who referred to themselves as G.I.s . The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across
4450-520: The agency supervising transit service in the Twin Cities region, to improve park-and-ride locations in Apple Valley, Burnsville, and Eagan. Demand for more spaces was projected as needing 300 more spaces in 1993 and 700 more spaces by 1996. A need for a 500 space park-and-ride lot in Burnsville by I-35W were identified but no timeline for construction had been established. A year later in 1994,
4539-506: The apostrophe should be reserved for the possessive ("the TV's antenna"). In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the acronym is used to indicate plural words: for example, the Spanish EE.UU. , for Estados Unidos ('United States'). This old convention is still sometimes followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as SS. for Saints , pp. for
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#17327980231754628-1163: The case. Sometimes function words are included to make a pronounceable acronym, such as CORE ( Congress of Racial Equality ). Sometimes the letters representing these words are written in lower case, such as in the cases of "TfL" (" Transport for London ") and LotR ( The Lord of the Rings ); this usually occurs when the acronym represents a multi-word proper noun. Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal ) in names are often represented by digits rather than initial letters, as in "4GL" (" fourth generation language ") or "G77" (" Group of 77 "). Large numbers may use metric prefixes , as with " Y2K " for "Year 2000". Exceptions using initials for numbers include " TLA " ("three-letter acronym/abbreviation") and "GoF" (" Gang of Four "). Abbreviations using numbers for other purposes include repetitions, such as " A2DP " ("Advanced Audio Distribution Profile"), " W3C " ("World Wide Web Consortium"), and T3 ( Trends, Tips & Tools for Everyday Living ); pronunciation, such as " B2B " ("business to business"); and numeronyms , such as "i18n" ("internationalization"; "18" represents
4717-475: The central cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The agency's name refers to the river valley along the Minnesota River in the region. The agency offers local buses through the communities and to select destinations north of the agency's service area, as well as express bus service to downtown Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the University of Minnesota . Demand response transit service is also offered within select service area communities. Two regional transitways,
4806-635: The cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul , as well as the Mall of America in Bloomington . MVTA's service is designed primarily to transport passengers from the residential suburbs within its service area to job and activity centers in Minneapolis and St. Paul . While the majority of the agency's ridership is concentrated during peak periods of travel (rush hour), MVTA service operates seven days per week and up to 18 hours per day on some routes. MVTA
4895-413: The compact discs). In some instances, however, an apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter of an abbreviation is "S", as in "SOS's" (although abbreviations ending with S can also take "-es", e.g. "SOSes"), or when pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods. A particularly rich source of options arises when the plural of an acronym would normally be indicated in a word other than
4984-564: The contrived acronym "P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H." The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and pre-dates modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are: The earliest example of a word derived from an acronym listed by the OED is "abjud" (now " abjad "), formed from the original first four letters of the Arabic alphabet in the late eighteenth century. Some acrostics pre-date this, however, such as
5073-579: The corridor took several decades with an inline transit station at I-35W & 46th Street opening in 2010. The final corridor plan designed a route from Burnsville, Minnesota across from MN Hwy 13 and the Burnsville Transit Station to downtown Minneapolis via I-35W and some connecting streets. The Orange Line, as do many other MVTA routes, use the Marq2 transit corridor in downtown Minneapolis. MVTA buses traveling via I-35W also stop at
5162-438: The dictionary entries and style guide recommendations regarding the term acronym through the twentieth century did not explicitly acknowledge or support the expansive sense. The Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage from 1994 is one of the earliest publications to advocate for the expansive sense, and all the major dictionary editions that include a sense of acronym equating it with initialism were first published in
5251-664: The exclusive sense for acronym and its earliest citation was from 1943. In early December 2010, Duke University researcher Stephen Goranson published a citation for acronym to the American Dialect Society e-mail discussion list which refers to PGN being pronounced "pee-gee-enn", antedating English language usage of the word to 1940. Linguist Ben Zimmer then mentioned this citation in his December 16, 2010 " On Language " column about acronyms in The New York Times Magazine . By 2011,
5340-763: The final word if spelled out in full. A classic example is "Member of Parliament", which in plural is "Members of Parliament". It is possible then to abbreviate this as "M's P", which was fairly common in mid-twentieth-century Australian news writing (or similar ), and used by former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley . This usage is less common than forms with "s" at the end, such as "MPs", and may appear dated or pedantic. In common usage, therefore, "weapons of mass destruction" becomes "WMDs", "prisoners of war" becomes "POWs", and "runs batted in" becomes "RBIs". Abbreviations that come from single, rather than multiple, words – such as "TV" ("television") – are usually pluralized without apostrophes ("two TVs"); most writers feel that
5429-464: The first letter of acronyms, reserving all-caps styling for initialisms, writing the pronounced acronyms "Nato" and "Aids" in mixed case, but the initialisms "USA" and "FBI" in all caps. For example, this is the style used in The Guardian , and BBC News typically edits to this style (though its official style guide, dating from 2003, still recommends all-caps ). The logic of this style is that
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#17327980231755518-429: The five suburban only routes terminating at the recently built Mall of America . MVTA along with ten suburbs and Dakota County participated in a "High-Speed Bus Coalition" to study high speed transit service along freeways with feeder local bus service in 1993. Interstates 494 and 35W were both discussed as corridors for improved service. I-35W is the main thoroughfare between the communities and downtown Minneapolis and at
5607-419: The independence of the opt-out communities. While MVTA hoped to increase service in 1991, they were unable to because the existing amount of service provided by MTC covered the full budget allotment available from their transit property tax revenue. Between 1989, when independence from the MTC system was studied, and 1991, MTC added 19 round trips from MVTA communities for a total of 85 daily round trips. Service
5696-435: The king". In English, abbreviations have previously been marked by a wide variety of punctuation . Obsolete forms include using an overbar or colon to show the ellipsis of letters following the initial part. The forward slash is still common in many dialects for some fixed expressions—such as in w/ for "with" or A/C for " air conditioning "—while only infrequently being used to abbreviate new terms. The apostrophe
5785-500: The label "usage problem". However, many English language dictionaries, such as the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary , Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary , Macmillan Dictionary , Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English , New Oxford American Dictionary , Webster's New World Dictionary , and Lexico from Oxford University Press do not acknowledge such a sense. Most of
5874-836: The language to changing circumstances. In this view, the modern practice is just the "proper" English of the current generation of speakers, much like the earlier abbreviation of corporation names on ticker tape or newspapers. Exact pronunciation of "word acronyms" (those pronounced as words rather than sounded out as individual letters) often vary by speaker population. These may be regional, occupational, or generational differences, or simply personal preference. For instance, there have been decades of online debate about how to pronounce GIF ( / ɡ ɪ f / or / dʒ ɪ f / ) and BIOS ( / ˈ b aɪ oʊ s / , / ˈ b aɪ oʊ z / , or / ˈ b aɪ ɒ s / ). Similarly, some letter-by-letter initialisms may become word acronyms over time, especially in combining forms: IP for Internet Protocol
5963-555: The middle of sentences for proper nouns; when following the AMA Manual of Style , this would instead be rendered as "the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)". Burnsville Transit Station Burnsville Transit Station is a transit facility located in the vicinity of downtown Burnsville, Minnesota , and is the flagship station of the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA). The station
6052-466: The more general "x" can be used to replace an unspecified number of letters. Examples include "Crxn" for "crystallization" and the series familiar to physicians for history , diagnosis , and treatment ("hx", "dx", "tx"). Terms relating to a command structure may also sometimes use this formatting, for example gold, silver, and bronze levels of command in UK policing being referred to as Gx, Sx, and Bx. There
6141-413: The new park-and-ride lot in Burnsville near I-35W was slated for construction in that same year. The 550 space lot with room for expansion would quadruple the previous lot. Burnsville Transit Station opened in 1995 and its combination of many parking spaces, indoor waiting area, space for additional businesses nearby was the first in the Twin Cities. The station cost $ 2.5 million in 1995 when it opened on
6230-553: The new park-and-ride lot in Burnsville near I-35W was slated for construction in that same year. The 550-space lot with room for expansion would quadruple the previous lot. Burnsville Transit Station opened in 1995 and its combination of many parking spaces, indoor waiting area, space for additional businesses nearby was the first in the Twin Cities. Other opt-out communities followed suit with construction of park-and-rides in Maple Grove, Plymouth, and Eden Prairie. MVTA would follow
6319-729: The plural of 'pages', or mss. for manuscripts . The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms is all-uppercase ( all caps ). Small caps are sometimes used to make the run of capital letters seem less jarring to the reader. For example, the style of some American publications, including the Atlantic Monthly and USA Today , is to use small caps for acronyms longer than three letters; thus "U.S." and " FDR " in normal caps, but " nato " in small caps. The acronyms " AD " and " BC " are often smallcapped as well, as in: "From 4004 bc to ad 525 ". Where an acronym has linguistically taken on an identity as regular word,
6408-483: The pronunciation is reflected graphically by the capitalization scheme. However, it conflicts with conventional English usage of first-letter upper-casing as a marker of proper names in many cases; e.g. AIDS stands for acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome which is not a proper name, while Aids is in the style of one. Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. The New York Times , for example, keeps "NATO" in all capitals (while several guides in
6497-685: The publication of the 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary added the expansive sense to its entry for acronym and included the 1940 citation. As the Oxford English Dictionary structures the senses in order of chronological development, it now gives the "initialism" sense first. English language usage and style guides which have entries for acronym generally criticize the usage that refers to forms that are not pronounceable words. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage says that acronym "denotes abbreviations formed from initial letters of other words and pronounced as
6586-552: The same format of large park-and-ride lot with easy access to highways and space for additional businesses in facilities at Apple Valley Transit Station and Eagan Transit Station which both opened in 2001 and 2003 respectively. In the mid-1990s, MTC had been renamed to MTCO and faced budget cuts which caused cuts in service and the need to raise fares. Opt-out transit providers like MVTA were largely immune from Metro Transit cuts because they did not rely on state and federal funding. In 1995 MVTA expected to provide 1.2 million rides and
6675-560: The service. The Metro Red Line is a bus rapid transit line running along Cedar Avenue (State Highway 77/County Road 23) from the Mall of America to Apple Valley Transit Station . Traffic congestion in the corridor led to the development of transit and roadway improvement plans. The entire project involved the creation of the Red Line for $ 21 million, express bus improvements costing $ 34 million, and roadway improvements costing $ 57 million for
6764-470: The sides of railroad cars (e.g., "Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad" → "RF&P"); on the sides of barrels and crates; and on ticker tape and newspaper stock listings (e.g. American Telephone and Telegraph Company → AT&T). Some well-known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include " Nabisco " ("National Biscuit Company"), " Esso " (from "S.O.", from " Standard Oil "), and " Sunoco " ("Sun Oil Company"). Another field for
6853-704: The site of the old Lucky Twin Drive-In movie theater. The station originally opened with 600 parking spaces and was designed to include commercial spaces on its 15-acre site such as doctor offices, dentist offices, a day-care center, or other tenants that would make running an errand after work easier for riders. The station first served riders on July 31, 1995. It was the first bus station in the metro area to include commercial development as part of its creation rather than just bus rider amenities like restrooms, heated waiting spaces, and electronic departure signs. Within two months of opening 510 spaces were used daily compared to
6942-476: The term acronym only for forms pronounced as a word, and using initialism or abbreviation for those that are not. Some sources acknowledge the usage, but vary in whether they criticize or forbid it, allow it without comment, or explicitly advocate it. Some mainstream English dictionaries from across the English-speaking world affirm a sense of acronym which does not require being pronounced as
7031-502: The terms as mutually exclusive. Other guides outright deny any legitimacy to the usage: Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words says "Abbreviations that are not pronounced as words (IBM, ABC, NFL) are not acronyms; they are just abbreviations." Garner's Modern American Usage says "An acronym is made from the first letters or parts of a compound term. It's read or spoken as a single word, not letter by letter." The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says "Unless pronounced as
7120-456: The time there were three routes to Saint Paul, and six routes to Minneapolis. After only six weeks of service, MVTA along with the other six opt-out communities rallied against budget cuts impacting their transit systems. The budget cuts were instituted by a state-wide budget decrease of 3% and passed down through the Regional Transit Board, which oversaw all transit operations in the Twin Cities. The budget cuts impacted all transit operations within
7209-608: The time was under consideration for a light rail line. While MVTA provided 1,085 parking spaces for riders throughout their system, 97% were full which led to the Regional Transit boarding funding projects to improve park-and-ride locations in Apple Valley, Burnsville, and Eagan. Demand for more spaces was projected as needing 300 more spaces in 1993 and 700 more spaces by 1996. A need for a 500-space park-and-ride lot in Burnsville by I-35W were identified but no timeline for construction had been established. A year later in 1994,
7298-570: The twenty-first century. The trend among dictionary editors appears to be towards including a sense defining acronym as initialism : the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added such a sense in its 11th edition in 2003, and both the Oxford English Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary added such senses in their 2011 editions. The 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary only included
7387-536: The whole range of linguistic registers is relatively new in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-twentieth century. As literacy spread and technology produced a constant stream of new and complex terms, abbreviations became increasingly convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899, but it did not come into general use until 1965, well after acronym had become common. In English, acronyms pronounced as words may be
7476-425: The word " an achro nym ", which is a type of misnomer. Words derived from an acronym by affixing are typically expressed in mixed case, so the root acronym is clear. For example, "pre-WWII politics", "post-NATO world", " DNase ". In some cases a derived acronym may also be expressed in mixed case. For example, " messenger RNA " and " transfer RNA " become "mRNA" and "tRNA". Some publications choose to capitalize only
7565-511: Was done with a full space between every full word (e.g. A. D. , i. e. , and e. g. for " Anno Domini ", " id est ", and " exempli gratia "). This even included punctuation after both Roman and Arabic numerals to indicate their use in place of the full names of each number (e.g. LII. or 52. in place of "fifty-two" and "1/4." or "1./4." to indicate "one-fourth"). Both conventions have fallen out of common use in all dialects of English, except in places where an Arabic decimal includes
7654-449: Was little to no naming , conscious attention, or systematic analysis until relatively recent times. Like retronymy, it became much more common in the twentieth century than it had formerly been. Ancient examples of acronymy (before the term "acronym" was invented) include the following: During the mid- to late nineteenth century, acronyms became a trend among American and European businessmen: abbreviating corporation names, such as on
7743-422: Was provided by a fleet of 45 buses. While the service in 1989 cost around $ 2 million, the additional service covered the fully $ 2.9 million in revenue dedicated to transit within the MVTA service area. By April 1992, MVTA was operating 88 round trips and ridership for March improved from 67,200 to 76,700 year-over-year. MVTA served 1,470 riders each weekday by 1993, and offered suburb-to-suburb service with several of
7832-418: Was provided by the predecessor of Metro Transit , MTC, until the creation of Minnesota Valley Transit Authority. MVTA was formed in 1990 and transit service from Burnsville began operating under the MVTA branding in 1991. Service in MVTA communities expanded and while 1,085 parking spaces were provided for riders throughout their system, 97% were full by 1993. MVTA sought funding from the Regional Transit Board,
7921-703: Was the largest of the opt-out providers. An 18-day strike by Amalgamated Transit Union in October 1995 suspended all commuter express routes. The commuter express routes were operated by MTCO under contract from MVTA. While transit ridership for MTCO declined after the strike, MVTA ridership increased by December 1995. The 5,130 rides provided each weekday in December were 55 percent more than four years ago when MVTA first started providing service. A tweak in state law in 1996 allowed opt-out providers to directly levy their own taxes for transit rather than collect them through
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