Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. As a general rule, all non-standard abbreviations/acronyms should be written out in full on first use (in both the abstract and the paper itself) and followed by the abbreviated form in parentheses, as in the American Psychological Association (APA). Resize your browser to full screen and/or zoom out to display as many columns as possible. ADDucation Tips: Click column headings with arrows to sort the acronyms list alphabetically. 2023. This means that they dont have time to Businesses frequently use initialisms as part of their branding, usually as a way of improving out-of-date, extra long, or not-quite-global phrasing. ThoughtCo. The fascinating story behind many people's favori Test your vocabulary with our 10-question quiz! Cc stands for carbon copy.. Check out a few initialisms used in the medical field. We recommend our users to update the browser. ROFL means Rolling on floor laughing. Acronyms and initialisms are also abbreviations. The practice of using an initial as well as a given name, as in J. Arthur Rank, Dwight D. Eisenhower is more widespread in the US than in the UK. Medicine Initialisms. SOB Review a few common examples. Enter search terms into the textbox above and click "Search" to seach all articles in the journal. ASAP, however, also qualifies as an acronym because it is made up of the initial letters of the phrase it comes from: as soon as possible. Her popularLinkedIn Learning courses help people write better to communicate better. (for the word example) cm. But few are as familiar with term initialism, or of an important distinction between the two.. An acronym is an initial abbreviation that can be pronounced as a word, such as NASA or WASP.This term is also used to refer to a series of initials pronounced individually, such as FBI or TGIF, but the nym a-kr-nim. Examples include FBI, CIA, FYI (for your Avoid SOB (shortness of breath, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria), if possible. OFC means Of course. Use them only if people recognise and understand them. Dont place a full stop after the acronym or initialism. They take the place of the words they represent. When quoting an exact phrase, write exactly what the speaker said. Examples include. Press Esc to cancel. Acronyms and Initialisms- Uppercase, Lowercase These terms may also be used in running heads. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The exception is if the shortened form ends a sentence and isnt followed by another punctuation mark. An abbreviation is a truncated word; an acronym is made up of parts of the phrase it stands for and is pronounced as a word (ELISA, AIDS, GABA); an initialism is an acronym that is pronounced as individual letters (DNA, RT-PCR). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website. Common Acronyms Examples International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD-10), Challenges in Forecasting Antimicrobial Resistance (Length: 22:34). terms that began as acronyms but are now words in their own right (radar, scuba, sonar). W3C (n.d.) H28: providing definitions for abbreviations by using the abbr element, Techniques for WCAG 2.0, W3C website, accessed 7 January 2020. In addition, some style guides insist on including periods. Check out our earlier blog post for more info on using articles with acronyms and initialisms.