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English Tip of the Week
Abbreviations vs. Acronyms vs. Initialisms
Dictionaries don’t all agree on the definitions of these words and neither do style manuals. So I will attempt to shed more light on the distinctions.
Abbreviations According to Dictionary.com, an abbreviation is a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, as Dr. for Doctor, U.S. for United States, lb. for pound.
Initialisms and acronyms are two types of abbreviations that are used to shorten phrases.
Initialisms are abbreviations that are pronounced one letter at a time.
Examples:
- FBI
- HTML
- IBM
- DVD
- BTW (by the way)
Note that most people would simply call these abbreviations, which is fine.
Acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced as words.
Examples:
- NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
- AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
- OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)
- SPA (Society of Professional Accountants)
- WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)
- ASAP (as soon as possible)
- Radar (radio detecting and ranging)
- Scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus)
Tip of the Week continued at the bottom of the newsletter.
Pop Quiz
Identify each of the following as either an abbreviation, initialism, or acronym. The answers are at the bottom of the newsletter.
- mi. (mile)
- laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation)
- MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
- wysiwyg (what you see is what you get)
- EU (European Union)
- lol (laugh out loud)
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Wordplay
Choose the correct spelling for the following words. This is Part 4 of a multi-part series that will cover 25 of the English language's most commonly misspelled words. Answers are at the bottom of the newsletter. Thanks to Hu O. for sending these in.
A.
- existance
- existence
- existanse
- existense
B.
- harass
- haras
- harrass
- herrass
C. Which is correct for a page at the beginning of a book?
- foreward
- forword
- forworde
- foreword
English In A Snap: 68 One-Minute English Usage Videos FREE 
Learn all about who and whom, affect and effect, subjects and verbs, adjectives and adverbs, commas, semicolons, quotation marks, and much more by just sitting back and enjoying these easy-to-follow lessons. Tell your colleagues (and boss), children, teachers, and friends. Click here to watch.
Answers to Pop Quiz
- mi. (mile) Abbreviation
- laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) Acronym
- MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Initialism
- wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) Acronym
- EU (European Union) Abbreviation
- lol (laugh out loud) Initialism
Answers to Word Play
Correct answers are in bold.
A.
- existance
- existence
- existanse
- existense
B.
- harass
- haras
- harrass
- herrass
C. Which is correct for a page at the beginning of a book?
- foreward
- forword
- forworde
- foreword
Tip of the Week (cont.)
Do you ever wonder about the origin of a word or when it came to be a common part of the language? According to Ask.com, the word acronym originated in 1943: “As wartime production of names using initials reached an all-time high, it was high time to give a name to the growing arsenal of alphabetic abbreviations. That need was met in a note in the February 1943 issue of American Notes and Queries: 'Your correspondent who asks about words made up of the initial letters or syllables of other words may be interested in knowing that I have seen such words called by the name acronym, which is useful, and clear to anyone who knows a little Greek.'"
Greek? Yes, acronym follows the model of other designations for types of words, like synonym, antonym, and homonym. The -nym means "a kind of word"; acro- means "top, peak, or initial," as in acrobat or acrophobia.
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