Acronyms vs Abbreviatons

No comment on the use of Acronyms on GN but I loved the suggestions by Michael Deacon in today's DT that FO beside Boris Johnson's name on Theresa May's list might equally have indicated a less than polite suggestion or indeed Foreign Secretary, while whenever she reads what he is up to, her exclamations of FFS could be "fantastic foreign secretary "

Try saying NHS or UN though..........

Countryfan, I have the same understanding as you regarding acronyms. Abbreviations are shortened forms of a word,as the name suggests or, indeed, using the first letter of each word to form initials that do not necessarily read as another word. At what point initials began to be referred to as acronyms, I do not know.

Boris Johnson, FO is an abbreviation....albeit an imaginatively multi-interpretative one! Love it, DB.o
And then there are anagrams....

Oops meant to say FO= Foreign Office
(It's thec way I tell them )!

I agree - and I have mentioned this in Pedants' Corner several times.

www.gransnet.com/forums/ask_a_gran/1223386-The-use-of-acronyms-on-Gransnet?pg=7

www.gransnet.com/forums/site_stuff/a1224687-Acronyms

I have stopped looking at threads in Pedants' Corner now, though, because by about Post 20, the same niggles come up and all the threads are the same.

Another misnomer - just as acronyms are not acronyms, the Pedants' Corner can't be inhabited by true pedants or they would notice this.