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Acronym

Acronym. Graphic and oral shortening of a syntactic sequence that is too long to be used in communication. The frequent appearance of acronyms and sigular forms in the most diverse written manifestations, and their increasingly habitual use, make it a new communicative element, with a double nature of symbol or sign that has been transformed into identification (GMT), brand factory (FIAT) or representative logo of an entity, institution or body (UNEAC, BNJM, UN, among others).

Definition

Word formed by the set of initial letters of a complex expression, as a summarized form of words and names made up of several voices, this is already a new word composed of the initials of others, which make up a long statement whose simplification into a few letters makes faster a spoken or written statement

History

The acronym, as the initial letter of an abbreviated word, dates back to the time of the Roman Empire, although its current massive use does not exceed, with few exceptions, several decades of life.

Acronyms, present above all in administrative and journalistic use, began to be used massively in their current structure in the 1930s, according to J. Martínez de Sousa in his International Dictionary of Acronyms (1978). Another author, A. Sauvageot, in Portrait du vocabulaire français (1964), argues that the tide of acronyms is due to the October Revolution of 1917, in Tsarist Russia. In the 1930s, in the Soviet Union, state institutions often received long and complicated names, the complete pronunciation of which was difficult. The need arose to abbreviate them and, consequently, the acronyms proliferated in that country. However, Manuel Alvar, in the Dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations (1983), assures that the modern impulse towards acronyms "is due to the development of the North American bureaucracy during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which explains the number of acronyms coming from of the English language, and to be regarded as an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon.

Characteristics

The acronym identifies something by itself.
Simplifying immediate end.
Power of graphic representation.
It keeps a grammatical relationship when referring to all the parts of the whole.
The abbreviation is used in terms of common use and in names that identify political organizations, associations, systems, industries, institutions, companies, unions, groups of countries, among others.
It encompasses the reduction of a set of voices that make up a proper name, whose repeated reference makes its full denomination annoying over and over again.

Types

To differentiate one from the other, it is said that there are proper and improper acronyms. Three types of acronyms have also been determined based on their reading.

Own acronyms

The proper acronyms are those that are formed exactly with all the significant words of the statement, without any being left out or another letter that is not the initial intervening in its formation. Example: FAR (Revolutionary Armed Forces).

Improper acronyms

The improper ones are those in which not only the initial letter of the significant words is used, but some other of the non-significant words that make up the statement, which is done to make the acronym pronounceable, as is the case with ADHILAC (Association of Latin American and Caribbean Historians).

Types of acronyms according to their reading

The syllabic: that can be read sequentially, just as they are written. Examples: SELA (Latin American Economic System), UN (United Nations Organization). These acronyms that are pronounced like a word are also called acronyms and some of them end up incorporated as nouns into the common vocabulary, such as lasers. It must be taken into account that in the acronym composed only of vowels, each of them is pronounced independently, preserving the phonetic accent of each vowel, as in OEA, which must be pronounced ó-e'-á.
Those whose unpronounceable form imposes the spelling. Examples: FMC (éfe-éme-ce or FBI (éfe-bé-í).
Those that are read combining both variants, such as EPEF (Provincial Schools of Physical Education), which is read é-péf; UPEC (Union of Journalists of Cuba), which reads ú-péc.

Differences between acronym and abbreviation

Specialists understand that the abbreviation becomes an acronym when its full development ceases to be pronounced. For example, when you write page, you read page, which is why it is an abbreviation. However, when you write CTC you read cetece, and not Central de Trabajadores de Cuba. That is, the way in which the terms of the proper name of that organization have been reduced is read. In this case, it is an acronym.

formation of acronyms

For the formation of acronyms, the following criteria are followed:

Join the first letter of each of the voices of the name that you want to simplify, eliminating the particles. Examples: ICRT: Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, ACC: Cuban Academy of Sciences.
Include the first letter of a particle, or the entire particle, to facilitate or improve pronunciation. Examples: IPUEC: Pre-University Institute in the Countryside, CECONDEVI: Housing Study and Control Center.
Join the first letters of each word, or the first syllable or more than one syllable of the constituent voices. Examples: ASCUBI: Cuban Association of Librarians, LACETEL: Central Telecommunications Laboratory.
Include the last syllable(s) of one of your words. Example: AVIATECA: Guatemalan Aviation.
Use internal elements of the voices. Examples: AVIANCA: Aerovías Nacionales de Colombia, a corporation.
Dispense entirely with one or several voices. Examples: PABEXPO: Pavilion of Fairs and Exhibitions, EXPO CUBA: Permanent Exhibition of the Economic and Social Development of the Republic of Cuba.
Vary the spelling of one of the elements. Example: BANKIBER: Iberian Bank.
Alter the order of the component parts. Examples: EXPEDIPORT: Port Shipping Company, CUBA VET: Cuban Company of Veterinary Products.
Include another acronym or any of its parts in its composition. Examples: CECIOS: European Committee of the CIOS (International Council for Scientific Organization).