Every so often I’m taken to task for referring to an unpronounceable string of letters as an acronym instead of an initialism.
I’m sure there must be contexts in which the distinction is important, but I’ve never felt the need to distinguish between acronyms and initialisms in writing for a general audience.
For one thing, the word initialism in its modern sense is even newer than the word acronym.
There is no entry for initialism in either of my pre-digital dictionaries:
Websters New Collegiate Dictionary (1960).
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971).
The presumably more up-to-date Word spell checker puts a red line under the word initialism as I type this article.
Note: The word initialism illustrated by OED citations dated 1899 and 1928 was not being used in the modern sense of initials used to identify an entity like the FBI. It refers to the once-popular practice of signing a published work with initials in order to conceal the identity of the author.
Most readers probably know that an acronym is an invented word made up of the initial letters or syllables of other words, like NASA or NATO. Fewer probably know that an initialism is a type of acronym that cannot be pronounced as a word, but must be read letter-by-letter, like FBI or UCLA.
German had the word Akronym as early as 1921, meaning “a new word made up of initials.”
Americans adopted the word with the English spelling acronym in the 1940s. These dated citations from the OED show that from 1940 to the 21st century, what some speakers now prefer to call initialisms have been called acronyms since the word was adopted into English:
1947 The acronym DDT…trips pleasantly on the tongue and is already a household byword.
1975 The puns on the acronym, ‘CIA’, were spawned by recent disclosures about the intelligence agency.
1985 Called by the acronym SCSD (Schools Construction System Development).
2008 The acronym TSS—Tout Sauf Sarkozy (‘Anything But Sarkozy’).
If it is important to you to distinguish between acronyms (NATO, NASA) and initialisms (FBI, TGIF) then by all means, do so. But if you are speaking to or writing for a general audience, it’s not an error to generalize all words and labels created from initials or parts of words under the broad term acronym.
Related post:
Initialisms and Acronyms
“if you are speaking to or writing for a general audience, it’s not an error to generalize all words and labels created from initials or parts of words under the broad term acronym.”
Well, yes it is an error, because initialisms aren’t acronyms.
If you don’t want to call initialisms ‘initalisms’ (for the very good reason that you don’t think your readers will know the term), then call them ‘abbreviations’ instead. That may be less precise, but at least it’s not incorrect.
–“Well, yes it is an error, because initialisms aren’t acronyms.
Sadly, neither you nor I are the arbiters of right and wrong. I would tend to agree with you if we were.
–“If you don’t want to call initialisms ‘initalisms’ (for the very good reason that you don’t think your readers will know the term), then call them ‘abbreviations’ instead. That may be less precise, but at least it’s not incorrect.”
I would argue that “abbreviation” would be just as “wrong” (or not) as “acronym.”
Secretary of Defense ‘abbreviates’ to ‘SecDef’, not to SD. ‘Corporation’ abbreviates to “Corp.” not to “C.”
But here’s my question: Why not just call “CIA,” “FBI” and the like “initials?” Because that is exactly what they are. Why the need for a different word?
“Most readers probably know that an acronym is an invented word made up of the initial letters or syllables of other words, like NASA or NATO. Fewer probably know that an initialism is a type of acronym that cannot be pronounced as a word, but must be read letter-by-letter, like FBI or UCLA.
I would agree with the above, except that the term “intitialism” isn’t one I’d say is “official” in the sense of what that would mean linguistically. But I have (and do) take an acronym to be, specifically, a set of initials pronounced as if it were a word, e.g. NATO, COLA, NASA, SCUBA. whereas a set of initials that is not so pronounced, e.g. FBI, CIA, USA; is not an acronym, simply an abbreviation. But I wouldn’t call initials and abbreviation. I’d call them initials. An abbreviation in my mind is simply a “clipped” or shortened version of a term– corp., inc., Calif., or even memo or fax are abbreviations.
While we’re at it, I do object to the Wall Street and chemistry terms “symbol”. NL is ot a “symbol” for NL Industries. It’s just an abbreviation. And Li is likewise not a “symbol” for lithium. A red cross or a or a hammer and sickle is a symbol or stick men and women on restroom doors are symbols. Dang it!
Whoa all…back off! As Maeve said, all these things used to be called acronyms (before the word initialism was coined). Putting all of these under the general umbrella term “acronym” seems to me to be correct. You are still taking (at least) the first letter of each word of a long phrase, and combining the letters into one short “word.” Sometimes the short word is easily pronounceable and sometimes it’s not. I would say that an initialism is a not (easily) pronounceable type of acronym, like FBI (fuh-BEE?)
Abbreviations are different, in the sense that they may be a few letters clipped off the beginning of ONE longer word (like fax…facs?)
Of interest (to me) is the efforts people will go to, when trying to create an acronym, so that it IS pronounceable, even if they have to fudge a little bit. People who come up with names for medical research studies do this all the time. For example, TOAST (Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment) and ENRICHD (Enhancing Recovery in Coronary Heart Disease Patients). Notice they used the “I” from that little word “in” so that it makes the acronym pronounceable. They didn’t call it “Improved Outcomes in Coronary Artery Disease” because IOICAD doesn’t sound as nice as ENRICHD LOL
@venqax – For Wall Street “ticker symbols” and “symbols” on the periodic table of elements (chemistry), the grouping of letters are not necessarily an abbreviation, but a representation of the name. For example, the ticker symbol for the Coca Cola company stock is KO. There is no “K” or word beginning with “O” for this company or product. Also, a number of chemical elements such as Sodium (Na), Lead (Pb), and Gold (Au) use letters that don’t relate to their names in English, even though they may be considered an abbreviation in another language (usually Latin). Since a symbol is defined as any graphic that represents a meaning accepted by a general consensus, these letters (individually or as groups) can and would be considered “symbols.”
@Roberta B.– I think you’re right, and that is what a symbol is at its heart, and why they call them symbols on Wall Street. But I strenuously object! While a letter is a symbol, it is very specific symbol that is part of specific symbol set called the Alphabet. So if it’s a letter, call it a letter, and leave that symbol-calling for those thingamabobs that aren’t letters and for which there is no other term. You could say the same for pictograms, actually, like the Restroom signs. Otherwise, when you call a letter or an abbreviation a symbol you are being purposely obtuse! And shame, shame!
You are right, too, that chemical abbreviations are sometimes taken from non-English names for the elements. My personal favorite is W for tungsten (aka wolfram). But they are all abbreviations, nonetheless. Same with other abbreviations, too: oz., no., lb(s).. etc. This is, of course, one of the Great Problems of Our Age and thankfully there are people like me to fret about it. 🙂
@venqax and Roberta: I agree with you both, that the Wall Street ticker “symbols” and the chemical “symbols” are symbols, in the sense that they stand for something else. Sometimes they’re abbreviations (of Engish or non-English words), sometimes not. I mean, nobody calls lead “plumbum.” Still, they are letters, which are a very specific type of symbol, and therefore I elect venqax, who worries about this enough for perhaps my entire county, to come up with a new name for symbols when the symbols consist of letters 🙂
I had to laugh at this. Our company was taken over by a very large US company, who used as many 3 letter acronyms as possible. To the point that whenever they were introducing some new idea, our first question was “What’s the TLA for that?” (i.e. Three Letter Acronym)
Why do you feel the need to use “initialism” when we have a perfectly appropriate (and correct) term, “initials”.
Lazy.
One issue that isn’t touched on here with respect to the difference between an acronym and initialism is the use of articles (a, an, the).
AFAIK there is no set rule, but I’ve noticed that organizations which are initialisms (the FBI, CIA, etc.) take an article while acronyms (i.e., pronounceable words) do not, e.g., compare “the NASA” or “the NATO” (incorrect) to “the UN” or “the WHO” (correct). Food for thought…
acronym is a pronounceable word. if i say a word, i don’t spell it out. if i have to spell it out, it is not a word, therefore not an acronym. it should b plain & simple. over the yrs, certain groups of letters denoting organizations, etc (an abbreviation of etcetera), have been labeled as acronyms since there was no word to describe what they r. in an attempt to correct their being labeled as acronyms, some (including me) have incorrectly called them abbreviations. apparently now the word initialism, is being used to label such groupings of letters. this would b a much more accurate term. btw (an initialism of “by the way”), some dictionaries get it wrong while some get it right.
Like many things, whether something is an acronym or initialism is not so black and white. I know someone who insists on using URL as an acronym. I however refuse to. Which one is it? That depends on who you talk to. Granted, some seem to be quite obviously one or the other but don’t ignore people’s capacity/desire to ignore that and just acronymize* or initialize a thing. -Simon
*Nope, not a word… yet.
1. Historical references are valuable for accuracy in cognitive etymology as well as scientific interpretation.
2. Opinions all have an applicable simile pertinant to the notion of everyone defending their own as correct within the confines of subjective circumstantiality.
3. Group concensus is not always accurate though often functional.
4. Disambiguification is often important to functionality.
Keeping in mind those 4 ‘tenets’ of ‘reason,’ I offer my views.
A.) The commendable references to past usages of “akronym” and “initialism” do not support the “feeling” of irrelevancy in regards to the modern need for disambiguification. Some evolutionary steps are well performed advancements.
Being flexible is not inherently wrong. Feel comfortable with accurately applicable change. No one needs defend from blame while accepting expressions of modernization.
B.) “Initialism” as a modern term seems quite in line with the past idea of using initialism to represent the name of an entity. The past and present definitions may be near enough to be applied to both in modern context (excepting for the concept of hidden identity).
C.) “Initials” cannot be the simplistic term used due to the already broad scope of modern applications. Initials as a pluralization is not specific to a single type of grammar. Nor does “initials” inherently imply the conjoined sequence of an individually recognized entity in name.
D.) The German reference specifies “akronym” as a “word.” Keeping in the accuracy of pronunciation which defines portions of speech as word, perhaps we SHOULD accept “initialism” as the modern identitification of names which are easy to define as otherwise unpronouncable sequences of initialized letters.
E.) “Abbreviation” also CANNOT apply to the disambiguification due to its broad scope of usage. Abbreviations are simply shortenings with no other inherent alignment. The idea of single word in abbreviation is not identical to the idea of multiple words as conjoined in a name.
All of our sensory contributions are valuable to future considerations and developments of language. Like etymology itself, my own opinion is not set in stone. Any further historical references, feelings, and insightful efforts at logical definition are welcome. Maybe someday portions from each of our views may find their way to Webster.
Webster’s Unabridged DIctionary from the 1990s does list initialism.
It says 1. A name or term formed from the inital letters of a group of words and pronounced as a separate word, as NATO for North Atlantic Treaty Organization; an acronym. 2 a set of initials representing a name, organization, or the like, with each letter pronounced separately, as FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation. 3. the practice of using initials or forming words from initials.
So acronym is perfectly fine unless you want to follow the herd and redefine initalism in a more modern sense. I think it’s a silly new distinction myself.
I did laugh at this:
“The commendable references to past usages of “akronym” and “initialism” do not support the “feeling” of irrelevancy in regards to the modern need for disambiguification. Some evolutionary steps are well performed advancements.”
I really can’t see the burning need to disambiguate a term that serves perfectly well for both.