American English often applies ways to shorten words and phrases for convenience and economy. This is particularly true in business, government, the military, and perhaps even more so now in texting and social media.<\/p>\n
For those with an interest in grammar, the question can become whether we are using an abbreviation, an acronym, or an initialism (which is often confused with an acronym).<\/p>\n
We last discussed this subject in 2008<\/a>. More recently, we received reader questions and feedback about the proper use of acronyms in our article on style in the U.S. military<\/a>. We thought it would be a good time to return to a relevant subject that can still sometimes be unclear.<\/p>\n We’ll start with a quick look at definitions as they apply to words and phrases:<\/p>\n In some cases, we might also see hybrids of acronyms and initialisms:<\/p>\n These days, acronym and initialism are often referred to interchangeably, including by popular references such as dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster online (as well as military style guides, which we examined in A Study of Style: The U.S. Military<\/a>). This contributes to the blurring of the distinction between them.<\/p>\n Because we aim for precision and eloquence in daily formal writing, we will reinforce how they differ by reviewing each category in its own table with some current examples.<\/p>\n Note that acronyms and initialisms may be punctuated if the style preference is to do so (e.g., A.S.A.P., C.S.I.). The Associated Press Stylebook, <\/em>one of our main style guides, advises to “avoid alphabet soup” when writing: Do not use abbreviations <\/em>[also comprising acronyms] that the reader would not quickly recognize \u2026 Names not commonly before the public should not be reduced solely to save a few words.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n It also instructs to “not follow an organization’s full name with an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses or set off by dashes. If an abbreviation or acronym would not be clear on second reference without this arrangement, do not use it.”<\/p>\n In other words, abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms can help keep our content shorter and more concise, but as always, we need to know our audience. Overuse of these devices can distract, confuse, and make our content less formal than we’d like it to be. Understanding the differences among them will give us greater command of their functions in both writing and speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" American English often applies ways to shorten words and phrases for convenience and economy. This is particularly true in business, government, the military, and perhaps even more so now in texting and social media. For those with an interest in grammar, the question can become whether we are using an abbreviation, an acronym, or an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abbreviations","category-definitions"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n\n
\n Abbreviations<\/strong> (shortened or contracted to represent the whole)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n approx. (approximately)<\/td>\n est. (established)<\/td>\n St. (Street)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n dept. (department)<\/td>\n Mr. (Mister)<\/td>\n U.K. (United Kingdom)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n e.g. (exempli gratia<\/em> = for example)<\/td>\n no. (number)<\/td>\n vs. (versus)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \n\n
\n Acronyms <\/strong>(made from first letters or groups of words, pronounced as a separate word)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n ASAP (as soon as possible)<\/td>\n NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n AWOL (absent without leave)<\/td>\n RADAR (radio detecting and ranging)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)<\/td>\n YOLO (you only live once)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \n\n
\n Initialisms <\/strong>(set of initials, each pronounced separately)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n BTW (by the way)<\/td>\n IMO (in my opinion)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n CSI (crime scene investigation)<\/td>\n MIA (missing in action)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n ETA (estimated time of arrival)<\/td>\n VIP (very important person)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n