Acronym vs. abbreviation

[Hodja]

Test No. incompl/advan-33 "Flying across the Channel", question 2

Apparently it is an ......... where the letters in the word are the first letters of a group of words.

(a) abbreviation
(b) addition
(c) anomaly
(d) acronym

Test No. incompl/advan-33 "Flying across the Channel", answer 2

Apparently it is an acronym where the letters in the word are the first letters of a group of words.

Correct answer: (d) acronym

Your answer was: incorrect
Apparently it is an abbreviation where the letters in the word are the first letters of a group of words.
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What does acronim mean?

Hodja

[Torsten]

Hi,

An acronym is a word that is formed from the first initials from other words. This means, you can read an acronym as word. You can read an abbreviation only letter by letter.

For example, NASA is an acronym because you can read as one word. FBI is an abbreviation because you have to spell the letters separately.
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Hodja]

Thank you very much Torsten. You are perfect.

[edivil2]

ok, here I go: Dear Mr. Torsten, my name is Eduardo, and I am from the Dominican Republic. I have been studying my ingleish lesson every week, but it hs been difficult for me to enter in the forum. Now that I have recieved your letter, I think this time it will be easier for me to write to you.
In the tests that yos have sent me, I socored 8 ( no too bad for a bieguinner). Back to m y origen, I said I am from the dominnican Republic, have of and island in the
caribean sea. the island is divided into two diferent country, the eastern part is Dom inican, and the western part of the island is named Haiti. Haiti speaks French and dominican speaks Spanish

Eduardo

[nataliru]

Dear Torsten
Thanks a lot again for such a clear explanation about acronim vs. abbreviation. It seems so clear now! Fine!
nataliru

[chokyi]

Dear Torsten

You defined abbreviation and acronym in such a manner that I think everyone understood it. Thanks a lot for enriching us with English or english.

[HamburgEnglish]

Hey Torsten

You mean I can't say fbee?

Laughing .....................................................................

[edivil2]

This theme is interesting, and the opinion of every one who writes is interesting also.But My question is: Is S.O.S an acrionym or an abrevation? Can I read S.o.S as sos?
thanks, all the correctiion are acepted, I am just leraning how to write in Englis.

Eduaro

[HamburgEnglish]

Of course you can say "sos" if you mean slang for sausages ....

BUT if you were in a boat sinking ... would you really need sausages ? (giggle) I suppose you could put the sausages in the holes to stop the water coming in :-0

Seriously though ... S.O.S. is a definite abrevation.

[thuhuong]

Thanks Torsten,
Everyweek, i have received the english lessons. These lessons are helpful for me.it's easy for me to learn. You can send many lessons for me so i can practise listening skill. Because my listening skill is very bad.
Thanks a lot,
Huong

[Le]

thanks so much for sending me English lessons. I am happy to receive those useful lessons from you.

Le_vietnam
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I want to become a good English speaker.

[danuwinata]

Thanks for the explanation, I just already know about it.

[walaa89]

thank you a lot Mr. Toresten for this explanation, I really liked it...
walaa

[Saad yasser]

you can read an acronym but not an abbreviation.there are many acronyms which people think are "normal" words like LASER AIDS ..

[laura bright]

This business of acronyms versus abreviations is an interesting topic. I live in TX. TX is the abbreviation for the name of the ate of Texas. Years ago, states were abbreviated with more than two letters. For example, the state of Massachusetts was abbreviated as 'Mass." I know they changed to two-letter abbreviations because they were easier to write when writing addresses. But when I was living in Massachusetts and they changed the abbreviation from "Mass" to "MA" nobody wanted to say it. So when we spoke of our state, we'd still say "Mass."

One thing that makes acronyms helpful is when they are used as mnemonics, or memory aids. When I was learning about God's grace, a teacher said to think of the word grace as an acronym for "God's Riches At Christ's Expense." The same teacher used the word "joy" to help us remember that "Jesus comes firt, then Others, then You." Sometimes acronyms serve as a way to explain and remember more complicated sets of words or ideas. Sometimes they can have more than one word. For example, when I was learning the planets in order of the sun, our teacher used the sentence: My Very Easy Math Just Simply Uses No Pencils. When we remembered the sentence it was easier to remember that the first letter of each word was also the first letter of the planet name. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Remember, that was back in the days before there was a controversy over whether Pluto was big enough to be a planet or should be called a planetoid.