Is TV an acronym or an abbreviation?

[tulipflower]

Is TV an acronym for tele (T)+vision(V)?

 

[Tarheel]

It's an abbreviation. Through usage "television" became "TV".

 

[Tdol]

Acronyms are usually made from the first letters of a number of words.

 

[Tarheel]

Often acronyms become "regular" words. For example, "radar" started out as RADAR (RAdio Detection And Ranging).

 

[Skrej]

Is TV an acronym for tele (T)+vision(V)?

No, because as Tdol mentioned in post #3, acronyms are composed of the first letters of individual words. While 'vision' is a word by itself, 'tele' is just a prefix and cannot stand by itself as a word, although several variants of English do use 'telly'.

Abbreviations are shortened forms of one longer word.

There is some overlap between initialism and acronyms. They're both composed of the first initial of each component word, but whereas acronyms are pronounced as a new separate word, initialisms are pronounced as the individual letters they're composed of.

Some examples of abbreviations:
Dr. (doctor)
tv (television)
cm (centimeter)
Dec. (December)
est. (established)

Some examples of acronyms:
scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus)
gif (graphics interface format)
ZIP code (zone improvement plan)
SIM card (subscriber identification module)

Some examples of initialisms:
ATM (automatic teller machine)
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)
DVD (digital versatile disc)
VIP (very important person)

Then you have words like FAQ which you'll hear as both an acronym and an initialism). Since acronyms are pronounced as a new word, they frequently lose their capitalization and get turned into lower-case "real" words - such as Tarheel's 'radar' example and my 'scuba' example.

 

[Barque]

although several variants of English do use 'telly'.

And that of course is just short for 'television', like the Australian 'barbie' for 'barbeque'.

 

[Tarheel]

I would say "scuba" used to be an acronym, but through usage it became a "regular" word.

 

[5jj]

It's still an acronym, though some people might not realise this.

 

[Tarheel]

I would say "scuba" used to be an acronym, but through usage it became a "regular" word.

I agree.

 

[Skrej]

That's true for several of them - scuba, radar, laser, taser, spam (the food), aids (disease), pin (as in card pin).

Although the latter two of course already existed as words with different meanings, so I don't know if they really count.

I only recently learned that the slang term 'phat' was actually an acronym for Pretty Hot And Tempting.

 

[5jj]

I would say "scuba" used to be an acronym, but through usage it became a "regular" word.

I agree.

I often agree with myself, too.

 

[Tdol]

There is some overlap between initialism and acronyms. They're both composed of the first initial of each component word, but whereas acronyms are pronounced as a new separate word, initialisms are pronounced as the individual letters they're composed of.

Many people don't make the distinction between the two and call them all acronyms.