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The unaltered form (computer numerical control) sounds better to me. Am I wrong? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/89.122.248.141|89.122.248.141]] ([[User talk:89.122.248.141|talk]]) 15:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:You're not wrong; in fact, I agree that you're right on all counts regarding what sounds better. The only asterisk to be tacked on is just that there is no "correct" and "incorrect" in the sense that you're probably expecting to find; [[natural language]] has its own well-rounded [[text corpus|corpus]] ([[wikt:instantiate#Verb|instantiating]] many options) despite any [[linguistic prescription|prescriptions]] that would try to guide it. We can edit this article to suit what you described, but we can't count on that lasting as new contributors come along, and we definitely shouldn't pick on them or tell them they're "wrong" for using the awkward versions. In natural usage people say/write all of the above, including the awkward ones—when they're even expanding "CNC" at all (which the initiated [those who know the subject] hardly ever do). The biggest place where the awkwardness-of-the-expanded-form question arises is in expository language (such as journalism, or this encyclopedia article) when the authors try to apply the usual convention of expanding "CNC" right at the spot of first mention, which is typical with abbreviations and acronyms in such language. Linguistically, there are several things going on at once (multivariate nature at work). The entire phrase, when used in an attributive (adjectival) position, can be treated by the brain as an invariable unit, as you pointed out (e.g., "computer numerical control machine tools" = "CNC machine tools" = no [[inflection]] needed on either), or as a phrase that requires inflection to its various component words—''but'' there's no universally agreed [[natural language|natural]] way to do it ("computer numerical controlled"? "computer numerically controlled"?). It seems to me that the brain wants to do ''something'' with "computer" inflectionally, but can hardly decide what. ''Computed'' (as is done in "computed tomography")? ''Computerized''? ''Computerizedly''? (The latter works but violates English idiom, which is to say, "doesn't work"). The brain spins its wheels and stumbles along. It seems to me that often many brains simply settle for treating the expanded noun phrase as mostly invariable—at least ''internally'' invariable—but they'll tack an ''-ed'' inflection on the end because it just "feels right" to say "...controlled [noun]" as opposed to "...control [noun]". Thus we get the one whose awkward feel you pointed out. Now, let's backtrack: "Numerical control" was the earliest of the terms, and it was coined as a noun (=noun phrase) from adj+noun. When you wanted to turn it into a [[noun adjunct]] (that is, a noun used adjectivally, that is, an attributive noun), you naturally inflected "numerical" (adjective) to "numerically" (adverb) to yield "numerically controlled machine tool" (adv+adj[pp-used-adj'ly]+noun). But then people modified the term "numerical control" in [[retronym]]ous fashion to yield "''computer'' numerical control". They also could have naturally chosen to call it "computed numerical control or "computerized numerical control", but they didn't. It hardly matters, though, because with all three of those (noun sense) options, you have no natural-sounding move to make, in terms of inflecting the phrase internally, when it comes time to use the noun as a noun adjunct (that is, to use it attributively). And the people who coined the noun sense didn't think of that ahead of time. The answer, as usual in natural language, is that "you're not supposed to think about it that hard"—you're supposed to spit it out, feel uncomfortable for a split second, and move on. People who are familiar with the ''meaning'' of the term use the abbreviation anyway—not the expansion—and in that case, "CNC" (noun sense) and "CNC" (adjectival sense, that is, noun adjunct sense) are inflectionally identical, so it's a non-issue entirely. As I said, the stumbling over the expanded form is usually only a problem in expository language (most especially expository writing)—that's where it ends up being dealt with or dwelled upon. And no matter what you [[linguistic prescription|prescribe]] in that context, natural language will not consistently follow the "rule". And the great thing is that that doesn't matter—natural language doesn't have to care. "If you catch my meaning, then the language did its job." Everything else editing-wise is just ignorance of linguistic science. Unfortunately for those looking for a simple answer, there is no answer to the question of "but which way is ''correct''?" where "correct" is defined in the sense of [[traditional grammar]], because traditional grammar misunderstands linguistic reality. The only "answer" is that the definition of "correct" doesn't apply. Hope this is found interesting. — [[User:Three-quarter-ten|¾-10]] 20:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
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