What is an acronym and why do we use them?

Have you ever popped in a Digital Versatile Disc or taken money from an Automated Teller Machine? Maybe you were driving too fast, and the Los Angeles Police Department pulled you over. Or you downloaded a Joint Photographic Experts Group from an email.

If you’ve ever seen a series of letters that looks like no word you’ve ever read, then it’s likely an acronym that’s used to shorten phrases of names, organizations, and forms of technology, as well as many other common things. Acronyms condense lengthy phrases or terms into shorter, easier-to-remember combinations of letters. Instead of repeatedly using such a long phrase, we can use an acronym to convey the same meaning and still get the gist.

These aforementioned examples (DVD, ATM, LAPD, JPEG) are all considered acronyms and have entered everyday use. Learn what defines an acronym, what kind of words or phrases are considered acronyms, and how we use them.

Characteristics of acronyms

At their very fundamental basis, acronyms are shortenings. Oftentimes, they take the first letter of a phrase to become shortened. The first letters of the phrase “National Aeronautics and Space Administration” become “NASA,” which is a phrase that you’ve likely heard pronounced as its own word. “AAA” for “American Automobile Association” is a common shortening, and it can be shortened even further and colloquially as “triple-A.”

Acronyms are used in the medical field (“MRI” for “Magnetic Resonance Imaging”), corporations (“AT&T” for “American Telephone and Telegraph”), and scientific or technological achievements (“CD-ROM” for “compact disc read-only memory”). These fields usually employ lengthy phrases to describe their entities, and as they trickle down to popular lexicon, it would be too unwieldy to keep saying their phrases in their entirety—hence, the acronym has become a handy and versatile way to express these concepts.

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Depending on the acronym, it can be pronounced as a word itself instead of a series of letters. You would say “NBC” in its individual characters (“National Broadcasting Corporation”), but you would say “UNESCO” as you-en-esco, which is much easier to say than its six individual letters or its full name (“United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization”). Here, the difference is the addition of vowels, which facilitate pronunciation and allow for it to roll off the tongue.

You may recognize some acronyms as words, and you may be surprised to know that their letters stand for something! For example, the word “laser” was originally an acronym, which stood for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.” This acronym consists of the initial letters of this phrase’s major words, and while its original scientific phrase may be more obscure, the acronym has become so commonplace that we now use it as a word itself.

“You may recognize some acronyms as words, and you may be surprised to know that their letters stand for something!”

Different types of acronyms

There are different types of acronyms that all fall under the same umbrella. Some are pronounced like words themselves, some are only known by their letters, and some have entered our lexicon as their own words. Here are common forms of acronyms:

Acronyms pronounced like a word:

GEICO as “Government Employees Insurance Company”
GIF for “Graphics Interchange Format”

Acronyms pronounced with their letters:

CBS for “Columbia Broadcasting System”
ATM for “Automated Teller Machine”

Acronyms that have become words:

Radar for “Radio Detection and Ranging”
Scuba for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”

Acronyms that are furthered shortened with common letters:

NC-double-A for “National Collegiate Athletic Association” (NCAA)
I triple-E for “Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers” (IEEE)

Differences between acronyms and abbreviations

You may get acronyms confused for abbreviations. An acronym is formed from the first letters of a phrase, while an abbreviation is a shortening of a word or phrase that uses any combination of letters. Usually, it will be the first few letters of a word that form an abbreviation. For example, the following are abbreviations instead of acronyms:

Ave. for “avenue”
Nov. for “November”
Exam for “examination”
Photo for “photograph”

Notice how many abbreviations have also become words in themselves, such as “exam” and “photo.” The difference is that they are formed from the first few letters of a longer word, instead of the letters in an entire phrase.

The benefits of acronyms

Whether spoken or written, acronyms are handy ways to communicate by cutting to the chase! They’re easy to memorize, especially compared to the lengthy phrases that they represent. By condensing a phrase into a shorter form, acronyms are efficient and save time. And by dint of their popularity and common usage, they take complex phrases and standardize them across countries and language barriers.

While this may seem to be a common concept, understanding acronyms and other elements of the English language can add nuance to your work and make your writing more powerful. Learn more about the proper use of quotation marks, find out what a spoonerism is, and overcome writer’s block with more handy tips from Microsoft 365.