56 fantastic acronyms and initialisms
Posted by staff / April 25, 2013 acronymacronyms and initialismsJohn GreenMental FlossYouTubeMental Floss hosted by John Green, where knowledge junkies get their fix of trivia-tastic information. This week, John sorts through a number of acronyms and initialisms such as M&M’s, SCUBA, and the USA PATRIOT act.
An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters (as in CEO)
An initialism (or less commonly, alphabetism) refers to an abbreviation formed from, and used simply as, a string of initials. Although the term acronym is widely used to refer to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, some dictionaries define acronym to mean “a word” in its original sense. Example BBC is an initialism.
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