What is the difference between an acronym and an initialism? An acronym is an abbreviation of a word where the initial letters of each word used in the abbreviation are pronounced as a word. Examples of this include AIDS and AWOL. An initialism is exactly the same, except the letters are pronounced separately. Examples of this include HIV and NCIS. If we want to get detailed we can also add mnemonic to this list, but for the sake of brevity I leave that to you to read about in your own time. If you're in business, I recommend that you do. I'll level with you and admit freely that I enjoy the occasional initialism. In both text and Facebook messages I am much more inclined to type TTYL, LMAO, and IMHO than I am to write their meanings out in full. As an editor I know better, but it’s very hard to ignore the delicious autocorrect invitation to skip the typing, and even harder to argue against the fact that almost everyone knows what these letters stand for. The truth is, these