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Acronym

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An acronym (Greek ακρον, akron, "tip" + ονυμα, onyma, "name") is one type of abbreviation formed from the initial letter or letters of words. Unlike the similar initialisms, acronyms form abbreviations which can be pronounced as words. Some people feel that the term acronym should include both true acronyms and initialisms: see further below.

Acronyms are a relatively new linguistic phenomenon, having only become popular during the 20th century. As literacy rates soared, the practice of referring to words by their first letters became increasingly convenient. The first organization to use them heavily was the United States bureaucracy under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who was himself dubbed "FDR") in the 1930s. For example, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was frequently shortened to "FERA" in official documents. Nonetheless, the early Christians in Rome used a fish as a symbol for Jesus in part because of an acronym — fish in Greek is ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichtos), which was said to stand for Ιησους Χριστος Θεου Υιος Σωτηρ (Iesos CHristos THeou Uios Sater: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior). Evidence of this interpretation dates from the second and third centuries and is preserved in the catacombs of Rome.

Acronyms often occur in jargon or as names of organizations because they often serve as abbreviations of long terms that are frequently referenced, so a shortened form is desirable. Cynics have quipped that acronyms are used to obfuscate.

Traditionally, abbreviations use a period (full stop) to mark the part that was deleted. In the case of acronyms, each letter is its own abbreviation, and in theory should get its own period. This usage is becoming less common as the presence of all capital letters is sufficient to indicate the word is an abbreviation; nevertheless some influential usage guides still insist on the many-periods treatment, such as the one used by the New York Times, but others — most notably, at the BBC — no longer require this. (See the Wikipedia article: abbreviation.)

Some acronyms undergo assimilation into ordinary words: often they are written in lower case, and eventually it is widely forgotten that the word was derived from the initials of others: scuba and laser, for instance. The term anacronym has been coined as a combination of the words "anachronism" and "acronym" to describe acronyms whose original meaning is forgotten.

There is debate over whether the word acronym can be applied to any set of initials. Some people insist an acronym is not only a set of initials which is pronounceable as a word, but that sets of initials like "BBC" and "IBM" are not only initialisms but also acronyms. On the other hand, under the classical definition of "acronym" there is no English word to describe all abbreviations which are formed out of the initials of the full words used in the abbreviation. Perhaps for this reason many people use the word acronym for all such sets of initials.

Sometimes non-initial letters, and the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to") are included in the acronym to make it pronounceable, in contradiction to the normal rule for abbreviation. Additionally, abbreviations like "Interpol" and "Gestapo" that consist mostly of non-initial letters of constituent words are often called acronyms, although some people class them instead as portmanteaus. When distinguishing between these abbreviations and acronyms which consist only of the initial letters, the term alphabeticism is sometimes used for the latter.

There is some confusion on how to class abbreviations which consist of initialisms but can partially be pronounced, such as JPEG. Typically these are classed as acronyms, although a case can be made for classing them as initialisms instead.

The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with "'s" ("there are two Q's in that word") was naturally extended to acronyms when they were commonly written with periods, and is still preferred by some people, especially when the acronym is pronounced as separate letters. However, today it is more usual to inflect them like ordinary words; thus the usual plural of "CD" is "CDs", with "CD's" being reserved for the possessive.

The longest acronym according to the 1965 edition of the Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary is ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC, a United States Navy term that stands for "Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command". However, if initialisms are also counted as acronyms, even longer "acronyms" exist.

During the 1960s trend for action-adventure spy thrillers, it was a common practice for fictional spy organizations or their nemesis to employ names that were acronyms. Sometimes these acronyms made sense but most of the time, they were words incongrously crammed together for the mere purpose of obtaining a catchy acronym, traditionally a heroic sounding one for the good guys and an appropriately menacing one for the bad guys. This has become one of the most commonly parodied cliches of the spy thriller genre. Some of the most popular were:

  • S.P.E.C.T.R.E. from the James Bond Series.
  • U.N.C.L.E. and T.H.R.U.S.H from the Man From U.N.C.L.E. Series.
  • K.A.O.S. from the Get Smart series.
  • S.H.I.E.L.D from the Nick Fury agent of S.H.I.E.L.D Marvel comics.
  • H.A.R.M from the No One Lives Forever series of computer games, which were released in the 1990's, but were based in 60's pop culture. What H.A.R.M actually stands for is never revealed, and speculation about it's true meaning is the subject of several jokes in both games.

Humorous Example of an Acronym

A definition for the word acronym can in itself become an acronym spelled acronym. Abbreviated Coded Rendition Of a Name Yielding Meaning. Turn that definition of acronym into an acronym, and the resulting acronym is ACRONYM.


Examples of acronyms

  • Alphabeticisms:
    • SAM: Surface-to-Air Missile
    • NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
    • NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    • AIDS: Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome
    • Anzac: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
    • laser: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
    • LED: Light Emitting Diode
    • scuba: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
  • Acronyms including non-initial letters (portmanteaus):
    • Interpol: International Criminal Police Organization
    • Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei ("secret state police")
    • radar: radio detection and ranging
    • CONMEBOL: Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Confederation)
  • Acronyms also containing separate letters:
    • C-SPAN: (SEA-span) Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network
    • OPEC: (OH-pec) Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
    • JPEG: (JAY-peg) Joint Photographic Experts Group
    • IUPAC: (AYE-YOU-pac) International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
    • UEFA: (You-EE-fa or You-AY-fa) Union of European Football Associations

See also

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