Acronym
Word or name made from the initial components of the words of a sequence / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Acronym and initialism?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
An acronym, a type of abbreviation, is a word or name consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Some authorities narrow the definition of acronym as only being pronounced as a single word rather than individual letters, thus considering NASA /ˈnæsə/ an acronym but not USA /juːɛsˈeɪ/;[1][2] the latter they instead call an initialism[3] or alphabetism, for a string of initial letters pronounced individually.[lower-alpha 1] Acronyms commonly are formed from initials alone, such as NATO, FBI, GIF, EMT, and PIN, but sometimes use syllables instead, as in Benelux (short for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), NAPOCOR (National Power Corporation), and TRANSCO (National Transmission Corporation). They can also be a mixture, as in radar (Radio Detection And Ranging) and MIDAS (Missile Defense Alarm System).
Acronyms pronounced as words include SWAT and UNESCO, while ones pronounced as individual letters include CIA, TNT, NPC, BLM, and ATM. Some use elements of both, such as JPEG (JAY-peg), CSIS (SEE-sis), and IUPAC (I-U-pak). Some are not universally pronounced either way, but by speaker's preference or by context, such as SQL (either "see-kwel" or "ess-cue-el").
The broader sense of acronym, which includes terms pronounced as individual letters, is the word's original meaning[4] and still in common use.[5] Dictionary and style-guide editors dispute whether the term acronym can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced "as words," nor do they agree on acronyms' spacing, casing, and punctuation.