In Search Of

If you've ever done business with businesses of any size, you've encountered the acronym ISO, which represents the world's largest developer and publisher of international standards (or, as the organization itself likes to call them, International Standards). You usually see "ISO" followed by "9000" or "9001" or the suffix "-compliant." I can't explain what the numerals stand for—ISO has developed more than 17,500 standards for a huge range of industries, from health-care technology to clothing to agriculture, so the 9000 must stand for something other than that aggregate number. Maybe it's the ninth in a series of standards, with three zeroes added as placeholders. But that's just a guess. No doubt one of you will enlighten me.

Until this week I thought I knew what "ISO" stands for: International Standards (or maybe Standardization) Organization. It turns out I was wrong. In English, the group's name is International Organization for Standardization. What gives?

Here's what ISO says:

Because "International Organization for Standardization" would have different acronyms in different languages ("IOS" in English, "OIN" in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation), its founders decided to give it also a short, all-purpose name. They chose "ISO", derived from the Greek isos, meaning "equal". Whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of the organization's name is always ISO.

That's a nice story, but it doesn't work for me. "ISO" would be the organization's name  if it were pronounced as a word (eye-so or ee-so) or if there were no non-initialized alternative (as with AARP, which dropped "American Association of Retired Persons" in 1999¹).

For the record, I am not a fan of acronyms.

(Hat tip: Catherine Newton.)
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¹ Very prescient of them! They must have suspected that by 2009 no one would be able to afford to retire.

Comments

[John]

Fortunately, then, ISO _is_ usually pronounced "eye-zo". :-)

You've got to love ISO 9001. It's supposed to be a quality-assurance standard, but says nothing about how good the product is, only how consistent. You can produce a rubbish product or service, but as long as you have documented systems and follow them, you can have ISO 9001 certification.

[Nancy Friedman]

@John: Are you in the U.K.? Here in the U.S. I've never heard "ISO" pronounced as a word, only as eye-ess-oh. A pondish distinction?

[Nikos Bilalis]

In Greece, ISO is indeed pronounced "eye-zo", like a word. And you're right: "isos" (masculine) and "iso" (neuter) means "equal" in greek.

[LivePaola]

In Italy too, we pronounce it as a whole word ("ee-zo"). Never heard the three letters spelled out!