This post first appeared on LinkedIn in 2022 and has been lightly edited for this site.
Abbreviations, shortened words or phrases used in written work, come in many varieties. Today, I cover four—acronyms, initialisms, clippings, and contractions. (Terminology varies from one source to another, and if you think my four broad classifications are excessive, check out the more than thirty classifications here.) In this post, I review different abbreviated forms and provide usage tips as well as several resources and links to related dictionaries and lists. Because of the article’s structure, few citations appear inline, but the references listed at the end have extensive indexes on abbreviated forms.
Acronyms
Acronyms are created by taking the first letter of a series of words to make a new pronounceable word. They normally appear in uppercase, but lowercase forms are not that unusual.
ABBA—Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid (the first name of each band member)
GIF—Graphics Interchange Format
laser—Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
NOAA—National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
UNESCO—United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Some of the daily life and pop culture acronyms may be a bit surprising—did you know about ABBA?
Usage note: As a rule, do not include articles (the, a, or an) before acronyms when used as a noun, which is most of the time, so the UNESCO and the NOAA are not acceptable constructions. There are exceptions, however, a GIF, for example. Exceptions are often based on conventional use. When used as adjectives, acronyms can be preceded by articles, so “a UNESCO publication” and “the NOAA guidelines” are both okay.
Initialisms
Abbreviations with individually pronounced letters are initialisms. Generally (but not always) created by taking the first letter of a series of words, initialisms come in two varieties, all caps and all lowercase. Uppercase (all caps) forms do not usually have punctuation between the letters. Things become a bit more complicated with lowercase initialisms because American and British usage can sometimes differ. For example, American usage for ante meridiem usually appears as a.m. while British usage can be am; however, this is not a hard-and-fast rule since New Hart’s Rules (2014, 195) recommends using the punctuated style. It is complicated. If in doubt, use punctuation with lowercase initialisms.
ATM—automated teller machine
CGI—computer-generated imagery
FBI—Federal Bureau of Investigation
GCSE—General Certificate of Secondary Education
MI6—Military Intelligence, Section 6
XML—eXtensible Markup Language
Articles typically come before an initialism—the FBI, the UN, the UK, an ATM, etc. However, like with acronyms, there are several exceptions to the rule, and these are also based on conventional use—MI6 and XML, for example, do not take an article. Applying an indefinite article (a or an) depends on how the initialism is pronounced. If the first letter sounds like a vowel as with MA, use an, yes, even though the M stands for “master.” Both of these are correct: “I got an MA in culture studies.” “I got a master of arts degree in culture studies.”
Do You Want to Annoy People?
Probably yes, but if no, then don’t repeat the full word that the last letter of an acronym or initialism represents, as in PIN number, HIV virus, LCD display, and ATM machine, to name a few. Most people don’t like that. However, if you really do want to be bothersome, you have carte blanche access to a whole new way of being annoying. Take care, and good luck.
Clippings
Clippings are so called because they are formed by clipping away parts of a word to make a shorter form of the same word. There are two types: those treated as new words and those that are not. An example of a clipping treated as a new word is sus. It is a clipping of suspect or suspicious.
ad or advert—advertisement (two types of clipping possible)
alum—alumnus (masculine form but used for males and females) or alumna (feminine)
app—application
blog—weblog
cellphone—cellular phone (technically a clipped compound)
flu—influenza
gas—gasoline
gym—gymnasium
lab—laboratory
vlog—video weblog (technically called a blend)
Be sure to notice that this type of clipping does not have any punctuation, and the reason is that they are themselves independent words.
On the other hand, the second type of clipping does include punctuation. These are more broadly known as “abbreviations,” but I wanted to give a more specific categorization for a reason that will be explained in the next section.
add.—addendum
app.—appendix (different meaning to the clipping above with no punctuation)
ch.—chapter
dist.—district
ea.—each
fig.—figure
Jan.—January
L. or Lat.—Latin
Sun.—Sunday
With this form, the full word is spoken even if the shortened form is written. For example, “ch.” is read as / ˈtʃæptɚ / not / ˈtʃ /.
Contractions
Like clippings, contractions come as two types, and both generally include punctuation if you are from the US. The first type of contraction, also generically called an abbreviation, is often used with titles.
Mr.—Mister
Mrs.—Mistress (etymologically, an honorific feminine form of Master)
Dr.—Doctor
St.—Saint
Notice how contractions differ from clippings. Clippings include successive letters of a word, generally at the beginning or end; contracted forms, however, have letters from the front and back and sometimes the middle of a word, hence the different classification.
The next kind of contraction should be familiar enough. The standard punctuation is the apostrophe ( ’ ). You likely know the common ones, so won’t, can’t, and don’t are not included in the following list.
gov’t—government
ma’am—madam
’n’—and (as in rock ’n’ roll)
ol’—old
’til—until
’tis—it is
Notice the direction of the apostrophes ( ’ ); they are equivalent to a right single quote, even if they appear at the beginning of the word. It might seem like a small thing, but it matters in a big way. If the punctuation faces the other way, then it marks the beginning of a quote, which is not what we are doing with an apostrophe. Don’t include terminal punctuation either. Also keep in mind that contractions like the ones listed are generally “used only in writing that aims for a relaxed, colloquial tone” (Sabin 2011, 170).
Conclusion
This article may seem a touch long, but it is really about the same as usual; the long lists deceive. Below are a few acronym and abbreviation sites you might find useful.
All Acronyms provides searches by keyword, by category browsing, and by other methods. Explore the site for more information.
Keyword: https://www.allacronyms.com
Category: https://www.allacronyms.com/aa-categories
Oxford University Press has a free public-access list of common abbreviations that appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. The list is quite extensive; however, it is not as exhaustive as the 100,000+ available in A Dictionary of Abbreviations, but this Oxford Reference site is behind a paywall.
Abbreviation list: https://www.oed.com/information/understanding-entries/abbreviations/
Dictionary of abbreviations (behind a paywall): https://bit.ly/2KHnSXS
Wikipedia has a general list of abbreviations with links to several categories as well as a dedicated page of acronyms with additional links.
Abbreviations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_abbreviations
Acronyms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_acronyms
References and Further Reading
The Associated Press Stylebook 2020–2022. 2020. 55th ed. New York: Basic Books.
The Chicago Manual of Style. 2017. 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Crystal, David. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
⸻. 2019. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Economist Style Guide. 2018. 12th ed. London: Profile Books.
New Hart’s Rules: The Oxford Style Guide. 2014. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Petelin, Roslyn. 2022. How Writing Works: A Field Guide to Effective Writing. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Sabin, William A. 2011. The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting. 11th ed., tribute ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.