Acronymophilia: Abbreviations and acronyms are different
BMJ 1994; 309 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.309.6960.1021b (Published 15 October 1994) Cite this as: BMJ 1994;309:1021
EDITOR, - Tsung O Cheng uses the word acronym incorrectly in the editorial entitled acronymophilia.1 An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from the initial letters of other words. Thus MONICA, RADAR, and LASER are acronyms whereas BMJ, MRFIT, DPPS, NHEFS, HHS, KFC, and CHS are abbreviations and not acronyms. All acronyms are abbreviations but not vice versa. An uglier but more correct title would have been abbreviationophilia.
Acronymophilia knows no bounds
- J Wafula,
- S J Krikler,
- P Nicol
- Brook General Hospital, London SE18 4LW Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton WV2 1BT Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital, S-751 85 Uppsala, Sweden.
EDITOR, - The examples of acronyms cited by Tsung O Cheng come mainly from cardiology,1 but all other specialties seem to be affected. Cheng seems to be under the misapprehension that he is alone in his views as the editorial's reference list of 10 SAPs (single author papers) demonstrates the NOAH (no other authors here) syndrome. This is a subtype of the COW (cite one writer) syndrome and an extreme version of the TRAUMA (the references are usually mine alone) syndrome. Are these new syndromes, or have they been described before, possibly under ABA (another bloody acronym)?
Terms for which acronyms stand may change
EDITOR, - One point that Tsung O Cheng did not mention in his editorial on acronyms is that the words that some of the letters in GISSI, CONSENSUS, and GUSTO stand for changed between the first and - second trials: in GISSI the second S changed from Streptochinasi to Sopravvivenza; in CONSENSUS the N changed from Northern to New; and in GUSTO the U changed from Utilization to Use, the S from Streptokinase to Strategies, and the T from tPA to To.
References
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