'Initialism' is a subcategory of 'acronym'. All initialisms are also acronyms, by definition.
Other way round; acronyms are a subset of initialisms, which are a subset of abbreviations.
That Young Knockout Kid
In practice most people say "acronym" even if the right term is "initialism." I say we keep it the same.
We claim the land for the highlord, God bless the land and the hiiighlooord!
If you're going to be pedantic about it, make a redirect for Fun With Initialisms. I don't see a reason to change the name. The only people who don't understand it are overly literal English majors.
edited 1st Sep '10 2:29:14 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
redirect added.
Searching for plausible mechanisms.
According to Merriam-Webster
, 'initialism' is a subset of 'acronym'.
If 'initialism' is a subset of 'acronym', then we're fine. Even if it isn't, it's close enough and there's a redirect for those who insist on accuracy.
Let's get this thread locked up and that scary repair shop tag off the page, shall we?
she her hers hOI!!! i'm tempe
Zzzzzzzzzz
Agreed. This is one of those definition-pedantry proposals. The redirect Fun With Initialisms is made and in place.
edited 22nd Oct '10 10:30:10 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
So, after I raised objections over at YKTTW to another trope, I was told "go to Trope Repair and fix it", so I'm here. (First visit to Trope Repair, so tell me if I'm doing it wrong.)
So. Fun With Acronyms - that trope for things where the first letters spell out a word for humourous effect (Comittee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society, or CLITORIS) - has apparently suffered Trope Decay and acquired a number of examples of things where the first letters spell out another well-known initialism for humourous effect (Flowers By Irene, or FBI).
Since these are basically the same joke and the same trope ("first letters of some words make something funny"), I'm reasonably confident that they can go under one article - which is where the rename comes in. Fun with Acronyms isn't technically the right title for initialism matching examples - to the extent where there's now a YKTTW for Allusive Initials. I really don't see that as sufficient grounds for a split, sooo... all in favour of renaming Fun with Acronyms to Fun With Abbreviations (or some such) to let it cover both?