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Old September 23, 2006, 08:43 PM   #3
Johnny Guest
Moderator in Memoriam
 
Join Date: August 28, 1999
Location: North Texas
Posts: 4,123
Not an acronyn, really

Well, nit picking it may be. I prefer to think of it as precision in our spoken and written language. I'm happy to see that the actual heading in The Library is Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Terms, and that one of the lists to which it is linked is headed acronym, abbreviation, or initialism.

There's a difference between an acronym and an abbreviation.

In brief, an acronym is a pronouncable abbreviation, formed by (usually) the initial letters of the words of a phrase. Since you can't really pronounce JBT, it is an abbreviation.

A common acronym is one that stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, pronounced "NAY-Toe." Another acronym, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, may be said "NASS-Uh."

The common abbreviation, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is difficult to pronounce as a word, so we normally speak the letters: "See-Eye-A." A General Purpose Machine Gun is called a "Gee-Pee-Em-Gee."

Strangely, some few abbreviations which could easily be pronounced as a word (acronym) are not handled that way. Amongst firearms students, the abbreviation for Browning Automatic Rifle is termed a "Bee-A-Are," not a "Bar."

Documentation:
From the Oxford American Dictionary:
Quote:
abbreviate to shorten (especially a word or title) . . . .
abbreviation 1. Abbreviating, being abbreviated. 2. a shortened form of a word of title . . . .

acronym a word formed from the initial letters of other words, as NATO, radar.
Concerning the reference lists in The Library - -
Truly, I'd like to know who, which actual person, compiled that top list, Common Acronyms/Terms (Local), internally titled Misc. Useful Acronyms. This is where, amongst a LOT of useful information, we find the perjorative term "JBT." In truth, this offensive term has no more place on such a list than does the 1960s term "pig" for police officer. And. please, let's dont get into the "Pride, Integrity, Guts" bushwa. This is the sort of rationale the bigots use to explain other offensive words such as WOG, WOP, chink, kike, and [color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color][color=#FF0000]█[/color]. (None of which, I note, are included in that list.)

Sorry about that - - A pet peeve of mine has bloomed into a minor rant.

Best
Johnny
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