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Old 05-02-2012, 05:26 PM   #1
DennisB
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Acronym?
My Webster's defines "acronym" as a word comprised of initials. Yet I constantly read that CIA, IRS and FBI and a hundred other are acronyms. Just how do you pronounce cia? See-ya? Is irs pronounced "ers" or "ears?" How about "iris?"

Your thoughts?
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Old 05-02-2012, 06:02 PM   #2
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My thoughts are that those who label CIA, FBI, NAACP, etc. as acronyms are silly-heads who don't quite get what an acronym is.

NATO, now there's an acronym.

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Old 05-02-2012, 06:04 PM   #3
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A word is a language token that has a space on either side (barring punctuation). So CIA is a word, C. I. A. are initials and C.I.A. is wrong. A word doesn't have to be pronouncable.

If you don't like acronym, then use the term initialism.
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Old 05-02-2012, 06:23 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by DennisB View Post
My Webster's defines "acronym" as a word comprised of initials. Yet I constantly read that CIA, IRS and FBI and a hundred other are acronyms. Just how do you pronounce cia? See-ya? Is irs pronounced "ers" or "ears?" How about "iris?"
Heh, previous replies have pretty much covered everything. They're not acronyms, they're initialisms that have become so familiar that they're not written with periods any more. You pronounce the letters as if they still have periods between them.

NATO, a true acronym, is now written as Nato in the UK press. Somehow it's become a word. The next generation probably won't have any idea where that word came from. Ah, evolution.

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Old 05-02-2012, 07:24 PM   #5
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Yes, the strings of letters not pronounced as words are initialisms, and words such as radar and laser are acronyms. However, the use of the word acronym has been bastardized expanded to cover both. This definition has both uses:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym
The use of acronym for initialism has been going on for decades. I read in the 1990's about "three-letter acronyms" and "four-letter acronyms" when these were clearly referencing initialisms.

More recently the word electrocute "evolved" similarly. Merriam Webster only has the original definition:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/electrocute

But if you look here and scroll down:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/electrocute
you see:
Quote:
1 to kill or injure (a person etc) accidentally by electricity
So nowadays in modern English you can be electrocuted, yet continue to live.

And then there was the recent P&CE thread where I was arguing with some person whose crazy statements I couldn't understand, until someone else pointed out some people now use millionaire to mean a person with income of a million dollars per year.
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Old 05-02-2012, 08:50 PM   #6
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It was, oh, nigh on 25 years ago when I learned that 'acronym' meant only an initialism that could be pronounced like a word, such as NATO or AIDS, and not initialisms that were pronounced as their letters, such as CIA and FBI.

Regardless, I've never used the word 'acronym' that restrictively, and lo, language evolution sides with me on this one.
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Old 05-02-2012, 09:11 PM   #7
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I have to admit I use it broadly. The definition is there somewhere in back of the cupboard, but, and I'll admit it, it's a forgotten one...
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Old 05-02-2012, 09:18 PM   #8
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So, calling the CIA an acronym is a SNAFU?
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Old 05-02-2012, 09:36 PM   #9
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Old 05-05-2012, 07:49 PM   #10
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BOHICA!

Personally, I didn't realize anyone misused acronym that way. Maybe I just hang around in more intelligent circles.
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Old 05-05-2012, 08:29 PM   #11
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Acronym is one of those words with an unclear definition or more than one definition. Some sources say that it is any word which is composed of initials, regardless of how it is pronounced. Other sources say that the word has to be pronouncable.

That gives us a choice. We can try to lay down the law and say that one of these definitions is definitely wrong and one is right.

Or we can say that it is a word with an unclear definition or more than one definition.

I was always taught that an acronym is a word made up of letters, no matter how it is pronounced. And that is how I'll use it until and unless there is a definitive decision on it or common usage becomes clear.

I think this is another of those example where US English likes to have clear rules and UK English works on historical precedent. Neither is right or wrong. Just different approaches to the language.
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Old 05-05-2012, 09:06 PM   #12
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The definition in my Oxford dictionary is clear enough - a word formed from the initial letters of other words.

And bearing in mind it also describes specific words as acronyms, and CIA (among others) as an abbreviation....
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