ICYMI (in case you missed it), acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms are ways to shorten phrases and ideas both in normal speech and through texting and email. But a common FAQ (frequently asked ...

Initially, I didn't think I could say a lot about acronyms. I was wrong. An acronym uses the first letters of a few words to form a new word. The purpose is to shorten a long string of words to one ...

We’ve been a little self-indulgent and playful during the holiday season, but readers are calling us back to business. Here’s one: For many years I have had anxiety about the plurals of acronyms and ...

I read with some amusement the letter from John Neumeyer regarding the use of acronyms in the literature without identifying their meaning (C&EN, March 30, page 2). I used to believe that any ...

I often remove unwieldy acronyms from articles I'm editing. The writer might assume that all readers know that acronym, but that often isn't so. Webster's New World College Dictionary defines an ...

The initialism ‘FB’ used on social media has been declared the most confusing of all time, with 364,274 monthly searches in the UK. Overall, the five most confusing social media slang terms are FB ...

As a longtime copy editor and certified word nerd, nothing drives me crazier than seeing words misused. Whether it’s people saying accept when they mean except, supermarket checkout signs reading “10 ...