reverse acronyming

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Wednesday, October 31, 2001 10:19 am +0000 P2052 at AOL.COM wrote:

> I think it's called an acronym when it spells a word (e.g., NATO) and
> initialism when it doesn't (FBI).
>                          pat

I've always heard the latter called an 'alphabetism'

Lynne


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
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UK

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