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Types of English abbreviations

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An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word or phrase. Here are some examples of abbreviations and their meanings:

MP – Member of Parliament
Dr – Doctor
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
app – application
They’d – They would

There are four different types of abbreviations in English:

  1. Initialism
  2. Acronym
  3. Shortening
  4. Contraction

Let’s look at each type in more detail.


Initialism

An initialism is formed from the first letters of a group of words.
We pronounce each letter individually.
FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation
ASAP – as soon as possible
CD – compact disc
CEO – Chief Executive Officer
FAQ – frequently asked questions
PLC – public limited company
UFO – unidentified flying object
USA – United States of America
VAT – value added tax

Rules for capital letters

If the first letters of the full form are capital letters, then we always write the abbreviation with capital letters:

For example, in the full form, we always write “Federal Bureau of Investigation” with capital letters for the first letter of each word because it is the name of an official organisation. Therefore we have no choice. We must also write the abbreviated form in capitals: FBI

FBI correct
fbi wrong

For the others (the full form is not in capital letters), both forms are acceptable. It is a style choice:

“frequently asked questions” – The full form is not in capital letters, therefore we can choose:
FAQ correct
faq correct

Rules for full stops (periods)

In British English, we do not usually use full stops between each letter for initialisms.
FBI correct
F.B.I. wrong
In American English, it is a question of style. Using full stops is more common in American English.
FBI correct
F.B.I. correct

 

Acronyms

An acronym is formed from the first letters of a group of words.
We pronounce the acronym as a word.
NASA – National Aeronautical and Space Administration
NATO – North American Treaty Organisation
OPEC – Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
PIN – personal identification number (code for bank card)
RAM – random access memory (computer memory)
SIM – subscriber identification module (card for mobile phone)
VAT – value added tax (sales tax in the UK)
ZIP – zone improvement plan (post code in the USA)

VAT (value added tax) is a special case. It can be 2 types of abbreviation:
It can be an acronym and we pronounce it as one word /væt/ (rhymes with cat)
It can also be treated as an initialism and we pronounce each letter separately “v”, “a”, “t”

Rules for capital letters

This is the same rules as for the initialisms. If the first letters of the full form are capital letters, then we always write the acronym with capital letters:

Example, we always write “North American Treaty Organisation” with capital first letters because it is the name of an official organisation. Therefore we also write the acronym in all capitals: NATO

NATO correct
nato wrong

For the others (the full form is not in capital letters), both forms are acceptable. It is a style choice.

“personal identification number” – The full form is not in capital letters, therefore we can choose:
PIN correct
pin correct

Rules for full stops (periods)

We do NOT use full stops after each letter of an acronym. This because we treat acronyms as words and pronounce them as words. We never write full stops in the middle of words.

Example for “personal identification number”:
The PIN for my credit card is 1234 correct
The P.I.N. for my credit card is 1234 wrong

 

Shortenings

A shortening is an abbreviation in which the beginning or end of the word has been omitted. There are 2 types:

Type 1 shortenings (treated as real words)

ad – advertisement (to promote a product or service)
app – application (software)
flu – influenza (an illness)
blog – weblog (a type of website)
rhino – rhinoceros (wild animal)

We use type 1 shortenings like real words. We write them and say them as one word.

Rules for capital letters

The first letter is a capital letter only if the full word starts with a capital letter:

Example: full form is “Briton” (with a capital first letter) therefore the shortening also must start with a capital letter: “Brit”
Example sentence: There are lots of Brits living in Spain.

Rules for full stops (periods)

We do NOT use a full stop after type 1 shortenings:
I placed an ad in the newspaper. correct
I placed an ad. in the newspaper. wrong

Type 2 shortenings (not treated as real words)

Feb. – February
Sat. – Saturday
etc. – et cetera (Latin for “and the rest”)

Type 2 shortenings are only used in writing. But when we say or read them, we say the full version of the word.

Writing: “Please send me the Feb accounts.”
Speaking: “Please send me the February accounts.”

Rules for capital letters

The first letter of a type 2 shortening is a capital letter only if the full word starts with a capital letter.

Rules for full stops (periods)

We have the choice to use full stops (periods) at the end of the abbreviation.

Example:

Full form: February
Feb. correct
Feb correct

Contractions

Contractions are abbreviations in which we omit letters from the middle of a word. We do NOT write a full stop at the end of a contraction. The first letter is a capital letter only if the full word starts with a capital letter.

Type 1 contractions (missing letters from 1 word)

Dr – Doctor
govt – government
St – Saint
Mr – Mister

Type 2 contractions (missing letters from more than 1 word)

We use an apostrophe to represent the missing letters:

he‘s – he is
they‘d – they would
I‘ve – I have

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Comments

  2. Hello!
    I want just to confirme if we have only this four types of abbriviation or not ?
    Please provide me with others types if it is possible and thank you for this informations concerning abbriviation

      • I’d say it’s an initialism not an acronym. (I’ve never heard anyone say /rip/ as opposed to /are eye pee/, have you?)

        (But if I’m wrong, then it would also be an acronym.)

      • RIP is an abbriviation and initialism both but not acronym because in the case of acronym the shortened form can be pronounced as a word where not in initialism.

  6. Concerned about the proper written use of apostrophes in contracted (Abbreviated) personal names.

    The obvious example is Zachary = Dear Zach, or Dear Zach’,? or Peter = Hi Pete, or Hi Pete’.

    In ‘proper’ English should an apostrophe be used.

    • No. Such shortened forms are shortenings treated as names in their own right, so no apostrophe (or full stop) would be used. Apostrophes are normally only used in multi-word contractions, anyway.

      • Not always, it was very common in the past for first names to be written, especially if it was a company name, to be written with the Ist letter capitalised and the rest of the contraction written lower case with a full stop. Eg Wm. Smith. See some older logos for what is now Thomas Cook, (Thos. Cook & Sons) as a good example.

  10. How would one shrink city or town names to 3 letter abbreviations? Is there a standard for choosing them? Often times 2 people would choose 3 different letters to abbreviate the same city….For example….the town of Seville = svl according to one person, and sev to another…..or the town of Robinwood = rbw to one person and rbn to another and maybe even rbd to another person. I’d like to teach the standard to all in our group so that we each can follow the same “rule” when choosing the abbreviation. If there is no such standard, we’ll need to make one up I guess…but I like to check with the an authoritative entity first. Thanks! Pete

  11. I’m hoping someone could help me with this question. Say we use the term “ASAP” as an example. As an initialism, it would be pronounced as “ay-ess-ay-pee.” As an acronym, it would be pronounced as “ay-sap.” But what is the technical term for reading the initials by the words they stand for (if my first response to ASAP is reading it as “as soon as possible”)? Another example is “GTG.” More commonly, you will read it as “got to go” rather than “gee-tee-gee.”

  12. “pin” in lower case is just wrong for obvious reasons — confusion with the generic word. My tat(tried an true) test: if one has to reread the word or, indeed, the phrase/sentence to be sure of what’s meant — bad! And you don’t need a pin to fasten that to your hat!

    J., and initialistically, FWIW:

    — Chicago 14

    — Webster’s unabridged

    — Strunk (White’s chapt. 5)