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Acronyms

Every day there is the need to communicate with others and with it the correct way to do it. Words arise within the communication process and they are made up of syllables; however, what is called an acronym arises, which is a sign that is formed with the initial letters of certain terms that can be an expression of a complex or complicated type.

They are called acronyms when they are made up of simple letters that cannot be pronounced as a whole, but when they can be read as a normal word, they are called acronyms.

Proof of this is the word UTEC, which means Technological University of El Salvador, as it was said, when joining the 4 acronyms they are easily pronounced as words, so it becomes an acronym.

The opposite happens with FMI, for example, as it is composed of consonants only, it cannot be read as a word as such, for this reason they are simply acronyms that belong to a long expression. In this case it refers to the International Monetary Fund.

It is important to know how to make the difference between acronyms and abbreviations. In the acronyms they are not going to be read replacing the expression to which they refer, that is, when Utec is pronounced, it is unnecessary to say that it corresponds to the Technological University of El Salvador.

Acronyms are not usually plural, so it is advisable to keep them unchanged. One way to indicate that it is being pluralized is to put determiners in front that indicate said plurality, such as: las, los, otros, etc. The opposite happens with abbreviations.

It is worth mentioning that the use of the lowercase “s” acronym to represent plurality should be avoided, this is simply a resource of the English language. However, lexicalized acronyms can be pluralized because they are full words, such as tacs: it is a plural acronym for computerized axial tomography.

Things to note about acronyms

Acronyms can be written only with the initial letter in capital letters, if they are proper names and if they have more than 4 letters, they must be completely capitalized. Also if they are common names you can even write it in lowercase in its entirety.

The acronyms that are written in capital letters, never go to put a tilde because it is incorrect according to the rules or regulations of the RAE, Royal Spanish Academy. It is in charge of ruling over everything that is considered correct and incorrect as far as reading and writing are concerned,

The acronyms are subject to the orthographic rules that indicate that if it is an acute word, it is marked in the last syllable, as long as it ends in “n” “s” or a vowel; if it is serious, they are marked on the penultimate syllable when it does NOT end in "n", "s" or a vowel and the esdrújulas and sobre esdrújulas must all be marked.

There is nothing better than having an excellent handwriting knowing basic rules and when it comes to acronyms knowing how to write them and their respective pronunciation is of great importance.