Acronym vs Initialism
The difference between acronyms and initialisms, inspired by Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Season 7, Episode 9 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine -- During the cold open, Captain Holt confuses an acronym with an initialism. Here's a Reddit post talking about it.
In both cases, the first letters from a series of words are put together, such as:
- IRS for "Internal Revenue Service"
- TNT for "trinitrotoluene"
- LASER for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"
The difference: With an acronym you pronounce the letters as their own word, and an initialism you pronounce the letters individually.
- TNT and IRS are each an initialism
- LASER is an acronym