Acronyms are always initialisms and abbreviations, but not all initalisms are acronyms.
Abbreviations are the shortened form of a word or phrase intended to speed up communication and/or use fewer symbols. For instance "info" for "information" or "approx" for "approximate" are a couple of examples.
Acronyms are a type of abbreviation that uses the first letters of words in a phrase to make a new word. For instance "FOMO" is an acronym for "Fear Of Missing Out". The new word is easier to communicate. Other examples would be "SCUBA", "CAPTCHA" and "ASAP".
Initialism is a type of abbreviaton that uses the first letters of words in a phrase to make a term, which may or may not be pronounced as a new word. As such, acronyms are initialisms. However, initialisms include other terms in which the letters are pronounced, including "FYI" (for For Your Information), SOS (for Save Our Ship), and DTD (for Death To Disco). While initialism has existed for a long time, communication via SMS has made the act of initialism more popular IRL.
Only initialisms that can be pronounced as a word (as opposed to pronouncing each letter in the initialism) count as acronyms. Both of these terms are abbreviations of phrases, but abbreviations can also be made of single words as well.
Some more initialisms:
- BTW - By The Way
- GST - Goods & Services Tax
- AKA - Also Known As
- AWOL - Absent Without Leave
- ETA - Estimated Time of Arrival
- IBM - International Business Machines
- CSI - Crime Scene Investigation
- ASAP - As Soon As Possible
- EOD - End of Day
- BPM - Beats Per Minute
- BCC - Blind Carbon Copy
- DOA - Dead On Arrival
- CC - Carbon Copy
- CEO - Chief Executive Officer
- HR - Human Resources
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