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#Two letter abbreviations for words manual#

#Two letter abbreviations for words manual#

The Chicago Manual of Style distinguishes between acronyms, initialisms, and contractions, all under the umbrella of abbreviation. When in doubt, spell it out.Īn abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase.

Do not use an abbreviation or acronym that your readers would not recognize quickly. Stop! Before reading the rest of this section, ask yourself: “Do I want to abbreviate or shorten a word or phrase to save keystrokes or to aid the reader?” If your answer is “the reader,” you’re on the right track. (For example, BASIC, which stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, is a very simple programming language.Navigation Basics | Details | Glossary | References | Images

An acronym whose letters spell a word meaningful in the context of the term it stands for is called an apronym.

Long versions, including Save Our Ship and Save our Souls, came later.) (For example, SOS was originally chosen as a distress signal because it lent itself well to Morse code.

An acronym in which the short form was original and words made up to stand for it afterwards is called a backronym.

(For example, VISA is said to stand for VISA International Service Association.)

An acronym in which one of the letters stands for the actual word abbreviated therein is called a recursive acronym.

An acronym so familiar that no one remembers what it stands for is called an anacronym (For example, few people know that COBOL stands for Common Business Oriented Language.).Related terns to acronyms include the anacronym, recursive acronym, backronym, and apronym. An initialism is an abbreviation that uses the first letter of each word in the phrase (thus, some but not all initialisms are acronyms).An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a word.An abbreviation is a shortening of a word or a phrase.(Note that abbreviations include shortened words like "esp." for "especially" as well as shortened phrases.) Many acronym lists you'll see are really lists of acronyms and initialisms or just lists of abbreviations. AT&T, BT, CBS, CNN, IBM, and NBC are initialisms that are not acronyms. Initialisms can be but are not always acronyms. initialismsĪbbreviations that use the first letter of each word in a phrase are sometimes referred to as initialisms. OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) Acronyms vs. Here are some examples of acronyms that use existing words:īASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) However, opinions differ on what constitutes an acronym: Merriam-Webster, for example, says that an acronym is just "a word formed from the initial letters of a multi-word name."įrequently, acronyms are formed that use existing words (and sometimes the acronym is invented first and the phrase name represented is designed to fit the acronym). So by these standards, for example, COBOL is an acronym because it's pronounced as a word but WHO (World Health Organization) is not an acronym because the letters in the abbreviation are pronounced individually. How is an acronym defined?Īccording to the strictest definition of an acronym, only abbreviations that are pronounced as words qualify. Furthermore, acronyms, along with related initialisms an abbreviations, are frequently used as industry terms, such as with manufacturing. Many organizations and corporate entities use acronyms as names. Webster's cites SNAFU and RADAR, two terms of World War Two vintage, as examples of acronyms that were created. The word may already exist or it can be a new word. An acronym (pronounced AK-ruh-nihm, from Greek acro- in the sense of extreme or tip and onyma or name) is an abbreviation of several words in such a way that the abbreviation itself forms a pronounceable word.