In article <3nfc40$cn9@portal.gmu.edu> bclar3@osf1.gmu.edu (Brian E
Clark) writes:

|> I am interested in why the A in Ansi still stands for American.  Since,
|> obviously, the standards being churned out are anything but uniquely
|> American, one might wonder why noone has petitioned to have the name changed.

For the same reason that the D in DIN still stands for Deutsche
(German).  ANSI is the American representative body to ISO
(International Standards Organization), in the same way DIN is the
German representative body, BSI the British, AFNOR the French...

At the end of the day, there will be an ANSI standard for the United
States, a DIN standard for Germany, an AFNOR standard for France, etc.
Hopefully, they will all be the same, because they will all be copies
of the ISO standard.  Colloquially, I expect we will often here of
ANSI C++ because of the preponderant role ANSI has played in the
development and standardization of C, much as we hear of DIN
horsepower because of the role the German standarization institute had
in standardizing how horsepower is measured.  (Curiously enough, there
is no longer such a thing as a DIN horsepower, since according to DIN,
engine power is measured in Kilowatts, and not horsepower.)
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