[RD] Initialisms, Acronyms, and the Definite Article

[BvBPL]

In America, I’ve noticed that people tend to use the definite article in front of initialisms; the FBI, the OECD; but not in front of acronyms; NAFTA, NASA. An exception occurs for acronyms referencing a discrete object; the RADAR, the LASER, the SCUBA.* Does this behavior jive with other Anglophones? Does it jive with people who do not natively speak English?

Americans also prefer initialisms to acronyms whereas many other Anglophone countries seem to prefer acronyms. It seems I remember abbreviations that are treated as initialisms in America but acronyms in other countries. Can’t think of any off the top of my head though.



*SCUBA is a little weird because, unlike most acronyms, it is not used as a noun much, but more frequently as an adjective or, less commonly, a verb.

 

[warpus]

English is my 3rd language and putting "the" in front of initialisms makes perfect sense to my internal "this sounds right/doesn't sound right" radar. Mainly because you would say The Federal Bureau of blah, so if you say F.B.I. it sounds right to put a "the" in front as well.

In the case of NASA, you don't pronounce it N.A.S.A., in which case a "the" in front would sound normal. But if you're just saying NASA, it sort of becomes a name, like John. And you don't say "The John".

As for words like radar, scuba, and laser, those used to be acronyms/initialisms, but have turned into common words. So we treat them the same way as any other word.

Every once in a while you'll come across an example that just seems wrong, even if you follow the above rules. But that's English for ya, a highly irregular language where rules don't matter. One example of this - Major League Soccer. People complain about this all the time and can't agree whether it should be MLS or The MLS. It seems like "The MLS" should make sense (as in, the sports league), but those who follow the league just go with "MLS" and claim that "The MLS" is wrong. Both sort of sound like they work to me personally.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Every once in a while you'll come across an example that just seems wrong, even if you follow the above rules. But that's English for ya, a highly irregular language where rules don't matter. One example of this - Major League Soccer. People complain about this all the time and can't agree whether it should be MLS or The MLS. It seems like "The MLS" should make sense (as in, the sports league), but those who follow the league just go with "MLS" and claim that "The MLS" is wrong. Both sort of sound like they work to me personally.

Around here, "MLS" stands for "Multiple Listing Service" - as in a list of real estate offerings for houses and condos.

Something I've noticed is a tendency to repeat the last letter by using it as both part of the acronym and the thing that it is. Examples are "ATM machines" or "S.I.N./SIN numbers" (stands for "Social Insurance Number") or "VIC card" ("Voter Information Card").

One acronym (set of initials?) that made it into common parlance among some left-wing voters but was never official was the one that was almost used for the current Conservative Party of Canada. When they first hijacked the old Progressive Conservative Party, a bunch of them were sitting around, trying to figure out what to call themselves, since they weren't legally allowed to use "Progressive Conservatives". Somebody piped up, "How about the Conservative Reform-Alliance Party?" (thinking to honor the various stages of their party's history).

Some were nodding their heads, pleased with that idea... and then someone else had to spoil the fun for the rest of us by pointing out that the resulting acronym would spell CRAP.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what an "initialism" even is, as it appears to just be a synonym for acronym from your description.

 

[BvBPL]

An initialism is an abbreviation made from the first letters of a series of words. An acronym is an abbreviation made in the same way, but one that forms a word. Here, initialism is used to distinguish abbreviations that do not form words from acronyms that do.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think you've got it. If the initials form a sequence of letters that can be taken as a word in its own right, we omit the article.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Sorry I don't have anything really constructive to add except to complain that my industry has far too many acronyms. Many are even of limited utility but it's culturally engrained that we turn everything in an acronym instead of just naming things. NASA took the lead in starting this trend. They went from Apollo to Space Shuttle (which they actually internally referred to as the STS) and now they've dropped the pretense of having a public name at all and just call their new rocket the SLS.

It's freaking lame.

 

[onejayhawk]

I like the practice of using an initialization to form a nickname. For example, device designated WSL-17 might be either Weasel or Wesley.

J