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:
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.
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.
Posted by: John | February 07, 2009 at 12:37 AM
@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?
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | February 07, 2009 at 07:23 AM
In Greece, ISO is indeed pronounced "eye-zo", like a word. And you're right: "isos" (masculine) and "iso" (neuter) means "equal" in greek.
Posted by: Nikos Bilalis | February 09, 2009 at 01:59 AM
In Italy too, we pronounce it as a whole word ("ee-zo"). Never heard the three letters spelled out!
Posted by: LivePaola | February 15, 2009 at 10:02 AM