Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[BMO]

May I say both are abbreviations and,

1. What you can't pronounce are initialisms, like WHO, WTO, US, JFK.
2. What you can are acronyms, like AIDS, SARS, RADAR, SCUBA, NAFTA, etc.
3. A broader definition of acronym includes initialism.
Thanks.

bmo

[pugachevV]

That's right. Acronym would technically include initialisms, I think, but is generally used to describe those that can be pronounced as a word. I don't know why the WHO is not pronounced "who", so it seems a bit arbitrary.

[BMO]

Thanks. Postscript is abbreviated to p.s., is this initialism?