Abbreviation or acronym?

Contributors to this forum (including Peter) reflect common practice in using the terms abbreviation and acronym interchangeably, and everyone knows what is meant. Historically, though, there is a difference. An acronym is an abbreviation where the initial letters make a new word, as in LASER, RADAR, NATO, UNCLE (for those old enough to remember the 1960s television spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). In other words, all acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations (such as DNB) are acronyms.

 

I haven't come across that term before, so thanks!

 

Often what then happens to acronyms is that people simply forget they were acronyms to begin with.

I explain it to my students as the acronym is pronounced as a word as opposed to the separate initials which make up an initialism.

The one I recently discovered was originally an acronym was spam (that and taser).

 

I pronounce FIFA as "Fee-Fa" which would make it an acronym for me, not a initialism.

As quoted from the Merriam-Webster: Some initialisms become acronyms by virtue of being spoken out loud frequently enough to become more like a word than a set of letters.

There is a debate as to whether or not spam was a blend (from spiced ham) or an acronym from "Special Processed American meat" although I suppose that is a backformation. (If I'm quoting the OED, then they consider it a blend, so my bad!)

It will always be an acronym regardless of whether or not people know it is - that is how it entered the English language and such, etymologically , it will remain an acronym. The OED recognises taser as an acronym, standing for Thomas Swift'S Electric Rifle - it suggests that it deliberately mimics "laser".

 

Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.
Clever!

 

My sentiments exactly. I care not how it originated - either as a chicken or an egg - whether an initialisation or as Peter puts it (reverse engineered). A rose by any other name is still a rose or should that be R.O.S.E (Roberts own solution explained) Sorry