What is an Acronym?
Unlike, say the French language, there is no official body that determines what is and isn’t proper English. Like the Web, though, there are a series of recommendations from recognized organizations. And, again, like the Web, there are those who disagree with the generally agreed upon usage. Nevertheless, most lexicographers would likely agree with Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary which defines: • an acronym as “a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term;” • an abbreviation as “a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole.” The Oxford Companion to the English Language goes so far as to define three types of acronyms: • “letter acronyms” (like FUBAR, GIF) • “syllable acronyms” (like Usenet, sysadmin) • and hybrids of these (like WaSP, SIGGRAPH) “HTML” is none of these, rather it is an initialism, which Oxford—among many others—defines as an abbreviation th
An acronym is a word formed from the initials of words in a phrase, such as NATO [‘neyto] from North Atlantic Treaty Organization or “scuba” from “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.” It is often used to include abbreviations but abbreviations are not all pronounceable words. “YDC” is an abbreviation, not an acronym.
Abbreviations are used to provide a shortened form of a word or phrase. One style of abbreviation combines the initial letters of each word in a series. In cases in which the resulting abbreviation is pronounced by saying each of the letters in order, this is called initialism. An example is the abbreviation for extrasensory perception, which is ESP. Cases in which this abbreviation is pronounced as a word in and of itself, form a different class of abbreviation, referred to as an acronym. Acronyms were first used in the 1940’s. The name comes from two Greek words, akron, meaning “end or tip,” and onumon, meaning “name.” In order to form a pronounceable word, an acronym may leave out “little words” in the series by not providing a letter to represent them. An example is NASDAQ system. The actual phrase is: “National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System” but, as you can see, the word “of” is not represented in the acronym. Another liberty that acronyms may take i
According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary, an acronym is: a word (such as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term. For example, take the first letter of each word in North Atlantic Treaty Organization and we get the acronym NATO. (NATO could also be called an initialism, more on that later.) Since acronyms are called words, their meanings are called definitions. The acronym NATO has the definition North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Not all acronyms form pronounceable words. SVP is an acronym that is not pronounceable, instead each letter is spoken. Some acronyms are formed from the first few letters of a word, instead of just the first letter. For example, the acronym MILCON has the definition Military Construction. The first three letters of each word are used to form the acronym instead of just the first letter. There is also a class of acronyms called initialisms. Initialisms are a
