Suppose there's a website called "BSD Lounge & Cafe", where BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution, the operating system. I want to make an acronym from that website's name. Is it BSDL&C or BL&C?
Given that's is normally know as BSD, I would keep that, but it does produce a rather long acronym. Could you put a dash after BSD?
Of course that's not a acronym; that an abbreviation or initialism.
The acronym/initialism distinction is very rarely used in BrE; it was only when I came into daily contact on the web with AmE speakers that I came across it.![]()
I'm with TDOL on this.
Very few people make this distinction. Most people don't know the difference.
I'm not a teacher, but I write for a living. Please don't ask me about 2nd conditionals, but I'm a safe bet for what reads well in (American) English.
That distinction is made in morphology. I know that people use them as synonyms, but in reality they're not; it's worth noting that testmakers are fond of this distinction very much.
-Acronym: RAM. (it can be pronounced like a word)
-Abbreviation: MDB. (we have to pronounce each letter separately, as though we were spelling the word out)