Acronym

From Hull AWE
Jump to: navigation, search

An acronym is the name of a special form of abbreviation, or the result of it. It is a single word, pronounced as if it were a word, not as a collection of letters. NATO, the abbreviation for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, makes a single word, pronounced 'nay-toe' and usually written with no full stops. (This is different from long titles that are nearly always referred to by their initials, but where the initials are pronounced as separate syllables. The B.B.C., which we usually say as 'bee-bee-see', is not an acronym, but an abbreviation (for the British Broadcasting Corporation. So is 'U.S.A.' 'you-ess-eh'.)

Academic writing advice: when you use a recognised long title or name, and use it several times in the same work, you are allowed to use the acronym, to save time, space and effort. (It can also help you with your word count - 'the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation' counts as five words, but 'NATO' is only one.) One rule, however, is applied, to help the reader (who may not know as much as the writer about this particular organisation, chemical or weapon). The first time you use the title, write it out in full and put the acronym that you are going to use in brackets after it, saying for example: 'the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)', 'polyvinyl chloride (PVC)' or 'information gathered from electronic eavesdropping - signal intelligence (sigint)'. After this introduction, you may simply use the acronym wherever it occurs - ASEAN, PVC or sigint. You do not need to repeat the full title in any single piece of writing once you have made it clear what the abbreviation stands for. In an extended piece of writing, such as a PhD Thesis or a book, it is good practice to include, in the preliminary matter, a List of Abbreviations used within the work.

Military organisations have a habit, which we believe originated in the American military, of using acronyms, or partial acronyms, to denote titles, job descriptions, geographical areas and units, such as CINCPAC for 'Commander-in-Chief, Pacific [Ocean area]'; SHAEF ('Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force'). If you are writing about such organisations (and some businesses use abbreviations in a similar way), you may use these as if they were normal words. When you are writing a broader form of academic writing, avoid them; or, if you must use them, follow the rule above - explain them the first time they are used.

Etymological note: The word ‘acronym’ comes from two Greek words, ἄκρος (akros, topmost, outermost, extreme) and ὄνυμα (onuma, a variant of the more common ὄνομα (onoma), name, word). (Other words beginning ‘acro-‘ and deriving from ἄκρος (akros) include ‘acrobat’, ‘acrophobia’, ‘acropolis’, and ‘acrostic’.)