Mental Floss on MSN

Acronym vs. Initialism: What’s the Difference?

Acronym is often used to describe any collection of first letters of words in a phrase: NASA for National Aeronautics and ...
Reader's Digest

13 Common Abbreviations and What They Mean

From informal texts to published academic works, these common abbreviations appear everywhere. But do you know what they really mean? From Dr. to Dept., we rely on common abbreviations every ...
Hosted on MSN

25 of the Most Confusing Acronyms and Initialisms

Acronyms and initialisms are a great way to save time on writing or saying unwieldy phrases, from graphics interchange format (GIF) to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Many of us know how it feels to not ...
AOL

Acronym vs. Abbreviation vs. Initialism: What’s the Difference?

ICYMI (in case you missed it), acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms are ways to shorten phrases and ideas both in normal speech and through texting and email. But a common FAQ (frequently asked ...