Acronym

An acronym is an abbreviation used as a word and formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters (as in NATO or laser) and sometimes syllables (as in Benelux).

There is no universal standardization of the various names for such abbreviations and of their orthographic styling. In English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process, and they are viewed as a subtype of blending.

Nomenclature

Whereas an abbreviation may be any type of shortened form, such as words with the middle omitted (for example, Rd for road or Dr for Doctor), an acronym is a word formed from the first letter or first few letters of each word in a phrase (such as sonar, created from sound navigation and ranging). Attestations for Akronym in German are known from 1921, and for acronym in English from 1940.

Although the word acronym is often used to refer to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, many dictionaries and usage commentators define acronym to mean an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word, in contradistinction to an initialism (or alphabetism)‍—‌an abbreviation formed from a string of initials (and possibly pronounced as individual letters). Some dictionaries include additional senses equating acronym with initialism. The distinction, when made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word or as a string of individual letters. Examples in reference works that make the distinction include NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/, scuba /ˈskuːbə/, and radar /ˈreɪdɑːr/ for acronyms - and FBI /ˌɛfˌbiːˈaɪ/, CRT /ˌˈsiːˌɑːrˌtiː/, and HTML /ˌeɪtʃˌtiːˌɛmˈɛl/ for initialisms. The rest of this article uses acronym for both types of abbreviation.

The Initiation

The Initiation is the fifth album by rapper, X-Raided. It was released on February 27, 2001 for his new label, Mad Man Records and featured production from X-Raided, Big Hollis and James "Razor" Brown. The Initiation made it to #39 on the Independent Albums chart.

Track listing

The Difference

"The Difference" is the third single from The Wallflowers' 1996 album, Bringing Down the Horse. The single was released in mid-1997. Though it did not achieve the chart-topping success of previous single "One Headlight" on either Billboard rock chart, it spent 8 weeks at #3 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and peaked at #5 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. It also peaked at #23 on the Hot 100 Airplay charts in 1997.

Track listing

Charts