Acronyms are your helping hand in making the task quick and easy. They are like abbreviations but are not the same thing. Both are shortened forms of words and phrases. We form acronyms from the initial letters of each of the successive or main parts of a compound term. Whereas an abbreviation is typically a shortened form of words used to represent the whole, like Dr. for Doctor and Mr. for the mister and so on. Earlier acronyms were referred to as initialism, meaning an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a phrase and has been in use since the late 19th century. But today a sect of people insist that acronyms should only be used for terms that are pronounced as a single word like PIN, RIP, NATO, ASAP, and more, and according to them, initialism should refer to the short forms where the individual letters are all pronounced distinctly, as with URL, SOS, ICU, etc.

Stop, wait a minute. Do you have to use a period (full stop) at the end when using acronyms? 

It’s not mandatory, and hence there is no strict rule for it. It completely depends on you, the acronym, and the word or phrase you’re using it for. Sometimes you are expected to use a period and make the acronym or the abbreviation easy to read and understand. 

Common Acronyms

For you to understand the acronyms easily, we’ve created a list of commonly used acronyms with their meaning.

About the author