Formatting Tip & Grammar: Acronyms & Initialisms

Posted December 10, 2014 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Formatting Tips, Self-Editing, Writing

Revised as of
25 Jan 2023

And you thought acronyms were the last word . . .! Yeah, I didn’t know about initialisms either. Obviously, there are a lot of people out there with too much time on their hands and way too OCD! Worse than me even! By the way, acronyms and initialisms are considered a type of abbreviation.

It is fun to learn new things, and no, you don’t really have to worry if your “acronym” is really an initialism. Both are treated the same way. The only important rule is in the rule below.

The Grammar Explanation is mostly an FYI in case someone throws some weird term like recursive backronym at you . . .

Formatting Tips and Grammar Explanations sometimes . . .

. . . cross as it does here in this post on “Acronyms & Initialisms”. Formatting Tips — capitalizing or italicizing, in quotes or not, what should be spelled out and what can be abbreviated, proper styling for the Latin names of plants, the proper formatting and usage of titles and more — can be affected by the grammatical rules and principles on structure that determine where and how words are placed in phrases or sentences.

Sometimes I run across an example that helps explain better or another “also known as”. Heck, there’s always a better way to explain it, so if it makes quicker and/or better sense, I would appreciate suggestions and comments from anyone on an area of grammar with which you struggle or on which you can contribute more understanding.

If you found this combination Formatting Tips and Grammar Explanations post on “Acronyms & Initialisms” interesting, consider subscribing to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

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Acronyms & Initialisms
Formatting, Grammar
Definition: An abbreviation formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. Usually these components are the initial letters or parts of words or names of a name, title, organization, etc.


Full-Name Rule: If you intend to abbreviate a phrase or the name of an organization, company, or government entity, use the full name the first time you use it in each chapter and follow it with the abbreviation in parentheses. After that, you can use the acronym without any further explanation in that chapter.


POST CONTENTS:

Acronym Initialism
Definition: Pronounceable as a word. Definition: Pronounced by its initials.

A.k.a. alphabetism, initial acronym, letter acronym

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
radar Radio Detection And Ranging
FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency
ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement
AJAX Asynchronous Javascript and XML
LASER Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation
OSHA Occupational Health and Safety Act
IKEA Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd
MoMA Museum of Modern Art
EFT Electronic Funds Transfer
DoD Department of Defense
NHL National Hockey League
WWW World Wide Web
P&L profit & loss
ROFL Rolling on Floor Laughing
BYO Bring Your Own
APA American Psychological Association
USMC US Marine Corps
Capitalizing Acronyms or Initialisms
ALL CAPS Rule: Acronyms and initialisms are usually in all-caps.

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Exceptions abound, of course; always check the individual company or dictionary being used to determine proper usage for an acronym about which you’re not sure.

The AP Style Guide rule is a good general guide, although it is not absolute:

  • Use all caps IF each letter of a name is pronounced as a separate letter.
Acronym Exceptions Initialisms per AP
AAA
AJAX
NATO
NORAD
BYOB
CVS
DHCP
FTP
HP
HTTP
IBM
ID
IQ
KFC
MTV
PDA
RSS
SDK
WWW
lowercase The AP Style Guide rule is a good general guide, although it is not absolute:

  • Some companies use only an initial cap.

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Acronym Initialisms
laser
MoMA
Ikea
Alcoa
Amoco
Cigna
FedEx
Geico
Kraft
Comsat
B&B
Benelux
DoD
P&L
MoD
Style Exceptions to the Full-Name Rule
Rule: Some acronyms and initialisms are so well-known that spelling them out is not necessary. Verify other acronyms and initialisms by checking a reputable dictionary to see if they are listed as words.
APA:
Abbreviations that are widely known:

  • Institutions:
    • FBI, CIA, AT&T, UConn, MIT, UCLA, NATO
  • Countries:
    • USA, UK
  • Corporations:
    • IBM, CBS, NPR, CNN, ITT
  • Famous people:
    • LBJ, FDR, JFK, MLK
  • Very familiar objects:
    • TV, VCR, CD-ROM
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary:

  • AIDS, HIV, HTML, IQ
Use of an Indefinite Article Rule: If you need to use an indefinite article before an acronym or initialism, use the initial sound of the word (not necessarily the initial letter) to guide your choice.

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a DoD
an http
a MoMa
an ETA
a CIA
a TV
a VCR
an AIDS
a FEMA
a BYOB
an NSA
Acronyms as Grammar
Apronym Definition: A special kind of acronym where the initials spell out a word or phrase relevant to the expanded version.

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ACME A Company Manufacturing Encouragement
ALOETTE A Lovely Objective, Essence To Try, Everyone
AMTRAK Another Metro Train Rolls Along Keenly
AT&T Attention! Thervice Thaved!
BE Bankrupt Enterprise
BECHTEL Big Engineering Contracts Hardened “Threat-Ending” Line
BORDERS Books (Obviously), Records, DVDs, Even Refreshments Sold
PEPSICO People Employed Peddling Sugar In Carbonated Offerings
SEARS Stock Everything Americans Regard Salable

Definition and examples courtesy of Apronyms.

Backronym Definition: A newly created phrase to fit an already existing word, name, or acronym. It either creates a memorable name or is a fanciful explanation of a word’s origin that may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology.

If a backronym helps you remember the word acronym or backronym, then it is also a mnemonic.

The word backronym itself is a portmanteau of backward and acronym.

A.k.a. bacronym, apronym, reverse acronym, retronym

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SPECTRE Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion
GROSS Get Rid of Slimy girlS
LISA Local Integrated Software Architecture
BASIC Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
SOS Save Our Ship
Ford Fix Or Repair Daily
SPAM Something Posing As Meat

Definition and examples from Oxford Dictionaries.

Anacronym Definition: A backronym that becomes more popular than the original acronym.

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snafu situation normal, all fucked-up
radar Radio Detection And Ranging

Definition and examples courtesy of NetLingo.

Pure Backronym Definition: The original word was not previously or commonly known as an acronym or abbreviation.

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acronym Acronyms Condense Representations Of Neologisms You Memorize

Because the word “acronym” itself is not an acronym, the phrase is a “pure” backronym (Backronym).

Recursive Backronym Definition: Recursive backronym – a backronym that refers to itself in the expression for which it stands.

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Acronym It Was . . . . . . and Became a Recursive Backronym
PHP Personal Home Page PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
Replacement Backronym Definition: A phrase back-formed from an existing initialism or acronym that is originally an abbreviation with another meaning.

Replacement backronyms are very popular as derogatory backronyms.

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Acronym Original Meaning Replacement Backronym
ASL American Sign Language Age/Sex/Location
FIAT Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino Fix It Again Tony
First In All Trouble
IBM International Business Machines Idiots Built Me
ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network It Still Does Nothing
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration Need Another Seven Astronauts
Never Absolutely Sure of Anything
Never A Straight Answer
NSA National Security Agency No Such Agency
NTSC National Television System Committee Never Twice the Same Color
Never The Same Color
OS/2 Operating System/2 Half of an Operating System
PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals People Eating Tasty Animals
POS Piece Of Shit Point of Sale
Parent Over Shoulder
PS/2 PlayStation 2 Piece of Shit 2
RSVP Répondez s’il vous plaît Respond to Sender Via Post
Respond So Very Promptly
SAAB Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolag Sex Assigned at Birth
SUV Sport Utility Vehicle Stupid Ungainly Vehicle
Mnemonic Backronym Definition: They are replacement backronyms created for the purposes of education, simply making it easier for people to remember.

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ROY G. BIV red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet
GUMPS Gas-Undercarriage-Mixture-Propeller-Seatbelts
CAN SLIM Current earnings
Annual earnings
New product or service
Supply and demand
Leader or laggard?
Institutional sponsorship
Market Direction
PAVPANIC Pronouns
Adjectives
Verbs
Prepositions
Adverbs
Nouns
Interjections
Conjunctions
Contrived Acronym Definition: An acronym deliberately designed to be especially apt for the thing being named by having a dual meaning or by borrowing the positive connotations of an existing word or to avoid a name considered undesirable.

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CAN SPAM Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing
CAPTCHA Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
USA PATRIOT Act Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act
fcuk French Connection United Kingdom
CLIT

CLaIT

Computer Literacy and Internet Technology
CCRAP (pronounced “see crap”) Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance (Party)

changed their name to “Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance”

ANAL
ViB
Alles nur aus Liebe (All for Love)
Verliebt
ASSOL

ASLS

Antonin Scalia School of Law

Antonin Scalia Law School

TIT

TNT

Team in Training
Euphonious Acronym Definition: An acronym to which letters are added or subtracted to produce a pronounceable word.

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laser Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation
radar Radio Detection And Ranging
Hybrid Acronym Definition: Has the features of both letter acronyms and syllable acronyms.

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JPEG

MS-DOS

Immigrant Acronym Definition: An acronym where foreign words are adopted into English.

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RSVP respondez-vous s’il vous plait
gulag Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii
Gestapo GEheimSTAatsPOlizei (Secret State Police)
Internet Slang Definition: Informal initialisms and acronyms used as a phrase replacement on social media, websites, and text messages.

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LOL laugh out loud OMG omigod
IMO in my opinion BRB be right back
NSFW not safe for work ROFLMAO rolling on floor laughing my ass off

You can find a lot more examples at Internet Slang.

Macronym Definition: An acronym in which one or more letters stand for acronyms themselves. Such macronyms can be multiply nested with one acronym drilling down to another and then another and . . .

A.k.a. nested acronym

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XHR XML HTTP Request “XML” is “eXtensible Markup Language
“HTTP” stands for “HyperText Transfer Protocol”
POWER Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computing
VHDL VHSIC Hardware Description Language VHSIC stands for “Very High Speed Integrated Circuit”
XSD XML Schema Definition XML stands for “eXtensible Markup Language”
SECS SEMI equipment communication standard SEMI stands for “Semiconductor equipment manufacturing industries”
AIM AOL Instant Messenger AOL stands for “America Online”
HASP Houston Automatic Spooling Priority “spooling” was an acronym — “simultaneous peripheral operations on-line”
RARS Regional ATOVS Retransmission Service

OR

“Regional Advanced Television Infrared Observational Satellite Operational Vertical Sounder Retransmission Service”

ATOVS is “Advanced TOVS”

TOVS is “TIROS operational vertical sounder”

TIROS is “Television infrared observational satellite”.


Definition and examples courtesy of Wikipedia: Acronym.

Obsolete Acronym Definition: An acronym or abbreviation that is not used anymore or has been replaced with a different name.

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WAS Full Name IS
ORA Office of Research and Applications NOAA
A/S/L? Age/sex/location?
BBS Bulletin board system
ICQ An online chat program and messaging system.

Examples courtesy of Bustle.

RAS Syndrome Short for redundant acronym syndrome syndrome (being intentionally redundant, it is itself an example of self-referential humor).

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Definition: A type of “pleonasm that uses one or more of the words that make up an acronym in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words.

Using a double acronym in this way is considered poor style when writing to persuade, impress, or avoid criticism, even though they are common in speech.

A.k.a. PNS syndrome, PIN number syndrome syndrome, personal identification number number syndrome syndrome, RAP phrases, redundant acronym phrase phrases, redundant acronym

RAS Syndrome the first “syndrome” in the “S” is redundant
PIN number the “N” in PIN stands for “number”
ATM machine the “M” in ATM stands for “machine”
Recursive Acronym Definition: An acronym that refers to itself because an existing ordinary acronym is given a new explanation of what the letters stand for, or a name is turned into an acronym by giving the letters an explanation of what they stand for, in each case with one of the letters standing recursively for the whole acronym.

A.k.a. recursive initialism, self-referential acronym

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GOD GOD Over Djinn from Douglas Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
EPT Education for Particular Task”, which later morphed into “Eptification for Particular Task” from John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar
GNU Gnu’s Not Unix!
Pine Pine Is Not Elm
MINCE MINCE is not complete EMACS
PHP PhpLanguage
TheGimp “The Gimp Image Manipulation Program”, but now is “The GNU Image Manipulation Program’.”
Pine program for internet news & email

Examples courtesy of Recursive Acronym.

Mutually Recursive Acronym Definition: A chain of recursive acronyms and their meanings.

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GNU Hird “GNU’s Not Unix! Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth”
GNU Hurd “Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons”

Definition and examples courtesy of GNU Hurd.

Syllable Acronym Definition: An abbreviation usually formed from initial syllables of several words.

A.k.a. syllable abbreviation, syllabic abbreviation

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Interpol International police
Benelux A political-economic union of three countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
FORTRAN Formula Translation
Sunoco A merging of Sun Company, Inc. and Sun Oil Co.
Conrail Consolidated Rail Company
Amtrak “America” + “trak”
Calexico “California” + “Mexico”
RoSPA Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
Technology Acronym Definition: Initialisms and acronyms in common and current usage by members of the Information Technology community and used to discuss LAN, internet, WAN, routing and switching protocols, and their applicable organizations.

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RAM random access memory IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol
ANSI American National Standards Institute CAT category (cable)
CPU central processing unit LAN local area network

Definition and examples courtesy of List.

Three-Letter Acronym Definition: Acronyms which use three letters.
AAA American Automobile Association
FTC Federal Trade Commission
BBB Better Business Bureau
DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse
DOA dead on arrival

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Formatting Tips by exploring its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Word Confusions, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for Acronyms & Initialisms

“Acronym List.” Oxford Dictionaries. Nov 2015. Web. n.d. <http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/11/backronym-list>.

“Backronym.” NetLingo. n.d. Web. n.d. <http://www.netlingo.com/word/backronym.php>.

English, Jason. “56 Acronyms and Initials All Spelled Out.” Mental Floss. 24 Apr 2013. Web. n.d. <http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50272/john-green-defines-every-acronym-ever?utm_source=MegaList&utm_campaign=f89a9e115e-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email>. Just for fun, watch John Green’s on acronyms and initialisms

“GNU Distributions Running Hurd.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd#GNU_distributions_running_Hurd>.

“List of Information Technology Initialisms.” Wikipedia. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_information_technology_acronyms>.

Peters, Lucia. “Remember These ’90s Internet Acronyms?” Bustle. 12 Nov 2015. Web. n.d. <https://www.bustle.com/articles/123402-7-internet-acronyms-only-90s-kids-understand&gr;.

“Recursive Acronym” 16 Apr 2010. Wiki.c2. n.d. <http://wiki.c2.com/?RecursiveAcronym>.

“Types of Acronyms.” All Acronyms. n.d. Web. n.d. <https://www.allacronyms.com/aa-types-of-acronyms#ixzz4U53BH5kS>.

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Pinterest Photo Credits:

This infographic from “What’s Your Acronym IQ?” by Wpromote is courtesy of Visually.

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