23. Acronyms

Acronym is a special type of blending, a typical acronym takes the first sound of each of the several words and makes a new word from those initial (первых) sounds. If the resulting word is pronounced like any other word – it is a true acronym.

E.g.: ASCII – American Standard Court of International Interchange (ам. стандартная кодировка для обмена данными). NATO – North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (орг-ция северо-атлантического договора), VAT – Value Added Tax (налог на добавленную стоимость).

To make an acronym pronounceable we take not initial sound, but the first consonant (согласные) and the first vowel together (radar = radio detecting + ranging). Sometimes acronyms are based on even larger changes of the words they abbreviate (FORTRAN – formula translation). Such words are half way btwn blendings and acronyms. When an acronym becomes fully accepted as a word, it often comes to be spelt with low case letters like other words (radar).

24. The difference btwn true acronyms & initialisms

If the letters which make up an acronym are individually pronounced, such acronyms are called initialisms. (E.g.: BBC - British Broadcasting Company, SOS – save our souls (a wireless (радио) code-signal of extreme distress (бедствия)), TV, B.C., I.Q., OK.

It was during the first administration of Roosevelt and during WW2 that the fashion for acronyms and initialisms really got moving. (E.g.: GIs – general issues, GP – general purpose, UFO).

Roosevelt created many new government adjectives, most of them were refereed to by initialisms (E.g.: WPA - Works Progress Administration, FTC – Federal Trade Commission). So, the practice became respectable and started a trend that is now enormously (очень) productive in all areas of life (E.g.: IRS – Internal Revenue Service (служба контроля внутр. налогооблажения), DMV – Division of Motor Vehicles (the driver’s license), NBC – National Broadcasting Company, ABC – American Broadcasting Company).

But it would be unfair (несправедливо) any longer to think of it as a trend of America (E.g.: ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art (Международный кооперативный альянс)).

In more recent time the proliferation (распространение) of initialisms and acronyms has been much increased by the ubiquity (вездесущности) of computer abbreviations (E.g.: CPU – central processing unit).

25. Reverse acronyms

The creation starts with choosing a word people want as their name, and then they work. AIM – American Indian movement, HOPE – health opportunity for people everywhere, PUSH – people united to serve humanity.

This reverse acronym has instant appeal and easy to resemble. Another wide spread phenomena is an acronym based simply on some popular phrase. People can produce acronym or initialism from any common phrase and from just about any stream of words. Most of them are used only within a business or a shop. A popular restaurant chain of the USA (west coast) is called TGIF – Thanks God it’s Friday. FYI – for your information. Call me asap – as soon as possible. DEWMS – individuals are referred to as dead European wide meals.