Week 1️⃣ 5️⃣

Acronyms and initialisms are part of everyday English, and they’re easy to confuse. Both are made from the first letters of longer names, but acronyms are spoken as words, while initialisms are spoken letter by letter.

Science has given us some of the clearest examples of acronyms. SCUBA began as Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, but today it’s simply “scuba diving.” RADAR was originally Radio Detection and Ranging, and LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. All three started as specialised scientific terms but are now everyday words.

Space exploration has its own neat acronym: NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It’s short, catchy, and designed to be easy to say. In medicine, AIDS — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome — became an instantly recognisable name in the 1980s. The fact that it looks like the English word aid is pure coincidence.

Global organisations also rely on acronyms. UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and UNICEF is the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. Both are spoken as words and recognised worldwide. In football, two more examples are UEFA — the Union of European Football Associations — and FIFA — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. These acronyms have become part of global sporting language.

Initialisms, by contrast, stay as letters. The BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation. ITV means Independent Television in the UK, but the same three letters in Spain refer to a vehicle inspection, the equivalent of the British M.O.T. test. M.O.T. itself stands for Ministry of Transport, and people always say the individual letters — “an M.O.T. test” — never “mot” as if it were a word.

Some names evolve in unexpected ways. The military vehicle now called the Jeep was originally designated G.P. for General Purpose. Soldiers slurred “gee-pee” into “jeep,” and the nickname stuck. After the war, the company Willys trademarked it, and Jeep became a global brand.

Finally, there’s the idea of the backronym — when a word exists first, and later people invent a phrase to fit the letters. A famous medical example is the APGAR score, used to check the health of newborn babies. It was named after Dr. Virginia Apgar, but later teachers turned it into Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration so students could remember it easily.

So, acronyms like SCUBA and LASER are spoken as words, while initialisms like BBC and M.O.T. stay as letters. And sometimes, as with Jeep or the APGAR score, the story is even more creative.