What do you call abbreviations for words
Initialisms are abbreviations that are pronounced one letter at a time. Common text abbreviations ROFL: Rolling on floor laughing STFU: Shut the swear word up ICYMI: In case you missed it TL DR: Too long, didn’t read LMK: Let me know NVM: Nevermind TGIF: Thank goodness it’s Friday TBH: To be honest TBF: To be frank RN: Right now QOTD: Quote of the day OOTD: Outfit of. Initialisms and acronyms are two types of abbreviations that are used to shorten phrases. Like if you abbreviated ‘abbreviation’ to ‘abbrev’.Īnd no one knows what to call the ones whose pronunciation involves a combination of letter names and words, like JPEG or MS-DOS. According to, an abbreviation is a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, as Dr. Like scuba, which stands for ‘self-contained underwater breathing apparatus’.Īn abbreviation (from the Latin brevis which means ‘short’) is a shortened form of a word or phrase, usually a letter or group of letters taken from that word or phrase. Some words we use normally are actually acronyms. So, NATO is an acronym (because it’s pronounced as a word) but DNA is an initialism. People use the term ‘acronym’ to describe anything made up of initial letters, but most dictionaries define it as ‘a word’.
What do you call abbreviations for words full#
If you’re talking about people’s initials-like JK Rowling, or EM Forster-in London, we say no full stops, and no spaces.īut our New York office doesn’t mind the full stops, so there it’s J.K. But avoid using it at all if you can-so you’d call the IAEA the Agency. If it’s not, or if you aren’t sure how well known it is, put it in full the first time you use it, then use just the short version from then on- International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA).
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If the short version’s more familiar than the full one, like BBC, FBI, or FAQs, you don’t need to write it out. Generally, we don’t put punctuation" in acronyms.