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What is the difference between abbreviation and acronym
Many people consider abbreviation and acronym to be the same and the reality is that they are totally different resources. Both are used to save space and write the words in a shorter way, however, depending on the reduction and the word that is intended to be shortened, it is considered an abbreviation or acronym. If you want to know in more detail what the difference between abbreviation and acronym is, keep reading this OneHowTo article and find out.
Abbreviation
According to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), an abbreviation is a reduced graphic representation of one or more words in which the final or central letters are deleted, they are written with a period at the end. They can be used in colloquial language to express words in short form (eg 'tmb' for 'also'), but not all of them should be used in formal language. There are countless abbreviations accepted for formal use, such as 'Mr.' instead of 'sir', or 'Mrs.' for 'doña'
Examples of abbreviations:
- for director
- Etcfor etcetera
- g. for example
- for adjective
- drfor doctor
- mrsfor mrs
- missfor miss
Initials
According to the RAE, an acronym is that word formed by the initial letters of a long or complex expression. As you can see, this is the main difference, abbreviations make up several letters of the same word, while acronyms only take the first letter of each word. The next difference is that abbreviations must be expressed with a period at the end, while for acronyms it is not necessary.
Examples of acronyms:
- UN for United N ations O rganization
- UFO for N or Identified Flying Object _
- CPI for C onsumer Prece Indices
- NASA for National Aeronautics and Space A dministration
- PC for Personal Computer _
- Personal Income Tax for Personal Income Tax _ _
- RAE for Real Spanish Academy _
