The joy of acronyms or initialisms – and the heartbreak of RAS Syndrome

Acronyms are a compact way for describing things. On July 5, 2019 I blogged about how in a speech The first time you use an acronym you need to define it.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines an acronym as:

“a word (such as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term.”

and then adds it also means:

“An abbreviation (such as FBI) formed from initial letters: INITIALISM.”

Their entry for initialism further explains:

“Acronym is a fairly recent word, dating from the 1940s, although acronyms existed long before we gave them that name. The term was preceded in English by the word initialism, meaning an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a phrase, and which has been in use since the late 19th century.

Some people feel strongly that acronym should only be used for terms like NATO, which is pronounced as a single word, and that initialism should be used if the individual letters are all pronounced distinctly, as with FBI. Our research shows that acronym is commonly used to refer to both types of abbreviations.”

An acronym may change over time. In eastern Idaho there is what currently is known just as the  Idaho National Laboratory (INL) - pronounced eye-null. Before 2005 it instead was known as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) - pronounced eye-kneel. Before 1997 it was known as the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) - pronounced eye-nell. When it began in 1949 it instead was the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS).  

Triple-letters are a special subset of acronyms. Let’s look at those from the first half of the alphabet. We begin with the American Automobile Association (AAA). Next comes the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and Direct Distance Dialing (DDD). Then there are Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) a disease, Family Food Fight (FFF) an American reality cooking competition television series, Girls, Guns and Glory (GGG) a former band name, Hash House Harriers (HHH) a running group, the Insurance Information Institute (III), Japanese Jujitsu (JJJ), the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL), and the Million Marijuana March (MMM). The vowels are completed by Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and the Union of UK Unicyclists (UUU).

But there also is the heartbreaking RAS Syndrome (redundant acronym syndrome) which you should avoid. An article by Mark Memmott at NPR on January 6, 2015 titled Do You Suffer from RAS Syndrome? explained how:

“At her favorite gourmet market last week, Korva went to the ATM machine, inserted her card, squinted at the LCD display, entered her PIN number and withdrew cash to pay for her RAS Syndrome therapy.”