Table of Contents
When did acronyms start being used?
In English, the first known acronyms (as opposed to plain old initialisms) cropped up in the telegraphic code developed by Walter P. Phillips for the United Press Association in 1879.
When an acronym becomes a word?
They are commonly called acronyms, but there’s a more specific term that’s used by linguists and people who like being precise about these things: initialism. Acronyms like ‘scuba’ (“self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”) are pronounceable as words. An initialism is an abbreviation formed from initial letters.
What is it called when you just use the first letter of each word?
initialisms. Abbreviations that use the first letter of each word in a phrase are sometimes referred to as initialisms. An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a word. An initialism is an abbreviation that uses the first letter of each word in the phrase (thus, some but not all initialisms are acronyms).
When did acronyms become so popular?
Their use accelerated with the U.S. space program and the Cold War, and by the time a “Dictionary of Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations” was published in 1960 it had 12,000 entries. So acronyms in English are on the whole a 20th century phenomenon.
When did acronyms become a part of daily life?
Acronyms didn’t becom a common method of word formation in English until World War II. The word acronym itself wasn’t coined until 1943. The lack of a need for such a word suggests the degree to which acronyms previously were not a part of daily life.
What are the standards for multiple names for abbreviations?
There are no universal standards for the multiple names for such abbreviations or for their orthographic styling. In English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process, and they are viewed as a subtype of blending.
Is it common to abbreviate names?
Even people’s names are sometimes abbreviated, as in the cases of JFK or MLK. Acronyms are so common, in fact, that often people recognize the concept without knowing what all of the letters stand for.