Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations...and which one STFU is...

BLOT: (03 Jun 2011 - 11:26:59 AM)

Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations...and which one STFU is...

Just so you know, an acronym is when you make a word out of the initial pieces of other words in which the other words tend to have some amalgamated meaning. Not necessarily just the first letters, but usually the first couple or three at the most (some languages, like German and Russian, lead to longer sections but in English it tends to be short bits). An initialism is when you use the initials of those amalgamated words to form a short little collection of letters that is not actually a word. An abbreviation is any sort of, well, abbreviation. It could be an initialism, an acronym, or simply a shortening. To quote MC Frontalot: :abbreviations if you need 'em (better keep it gramat.)".

Nowadays, though, no one cares. No one cares that a haiku is more than just a 5-7-5 "poem". No one cares that Romero zombies don't talk (except to say, "Halllloh, Aaaaaunt Alllleeesssha") and do not, DO NOT, eat brains. Look, retards...either a zombie can eat brains OR it can be killed by a headshot. Yeah, bet you feel foolish now, don't you? O'Bannon was a geek god but if you cite his good book over Romero's, then you better send more cops. Other things people don't care about? Let's just say if you ever say, "Isn't it ironic?" it probably isn't. Two dudes sitting by a road instead of travelling down it in a Beckett play? That's irony. Some dude sailing on a boat he helped to build? Not ironic. Some dude sailing in a boat he tried to stop from being built? I'll give that to you.

So, FedEx is an acronym (FedEx = Federal Express, not that anyone calls it that anymore). UPS is an initialism (unless you like saying "ups" or "oops"). Both are abbreviations, as is ZIP-code, which is an acronym.

Does it matter? Of course not. Though at the rate we keep softening the meaning of words we'll just eventually just degrade into some monosyllabic grunt, I'm thinking "GUGH!", that will mean everything depending on context.

And if reading a Wikipedia entry on what I just said, on why it doesn't matter, and some fun examples and variations bores the living shit out of you, you can always read the McSweeney's Internet Tendency article that inspired me to go off on the topic: "Actually, STFU is an initialism, not an acronym". Don't worry, it's ironic because the pedant gets the poop kicked out of him while talking about nominative cases and literals.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: June 2011