Acronym Vs Abbreviation

Main Entry: ac�ro�nym: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term
Main Entry: ab�bre�vi�a�tion: a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole <amt is an abbreviation for amount>

(I'm seeing "funny characters" above. Unicode conversion mismatch?)

Some say that the distinction between an acronym and an abbreviation is that an abbreviation becomes an acronym if it is pronounced as if it were a word. So NASA, WYSIWYG and CORBA are acronyms while IBM and HTTP are not. SCSI on the other hand is usually pronounced "scuzzy", so would be an acronym. I pronounce IBM as ib-bum, and HTTP as hit-tup, must I still call them abbreviations?

The confusion is apparently caused by different uses of the word "word": is every consecutive sequence of alphabetic characters a word, or does it have to be a pronouncable sequence of syllables?

For an abbreviation to be an acronym it needs to be a) an initialism (to be made up of the heads of its component words: for example the initial letters) and b) it should be treatable as a word.

SNAFU satisfies both of these criteria, and so is an acronym. 'Amt' fails to be an acronym for 'Amount' on both counts.

From MerriamWebster:

Main Entry: word: something that is said

According to this definition single syllables and whole sentences count as words, and written words aren't words until they are spoken, so it has to be a pronouncable sequence.

WRONG WRONG WRONG: the definition cited is only the first of many (1a, as in: take my word for it), and is not applicable in this context. Check out [[http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=word&x=0&y=0 m-w.com]] for the more appropriate definition**

PCMCIA (Personal Computer Manufacturers Cannot Invent Acronyms) doesn't count. CORBA, which does not correspond to a word in English nor sound like one, does.

According to http://www.alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxacrony.html an abbreviation "formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term" is called an "acronym" if pronouncable, an "initialism" otherwise.

Funny, according to the document "Intro A: Welcome to AUE and Guidelines for Posting":

: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: Dictionary Definitions
: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: Please do not post questions to a.u.e. that ask "what is the meaning
: of...", or "what is the origin of..." Looking in a dictionary is a
: quicker and more reliable way of getting an answer. Some people may
: respond to such questions with deliberately false information, and it
: may not always be obvious that it is comically intended. In the unlikely
: event that you don't have a dictionary at hand, try the on-line
: Merriam-Webster dictionary at http://www.m-w.com/

So, alt-usage-english's own FAQ recommends the definition listed at the top of this page.

If you insist on calling all abbreviations "acronyms," linguists will chuckle smugly and shake their heads at you. No one else will notice, and it'll keep the linguists amused.

Then again, linguists have mostly advanced (or retreated!) beyond both the strict prescriptive and strict descriptive viewpoints; at some juncture, if the usage shifts enough, the distinction will be moot. Word up!