Acronyms

[janzman]

Can anyone come up with any acronyms which take longer to say than what they stand for other than.....Double You..Double You..Double You------ World Wide Web

[Quizmonster]

Apart from W, with its three syllables, all other letters consist of one syllable. Accordingly, it's hard to imagine any acronym that fits the bill other than another one involving W or W's such as World Wildlife Fund - 4 syllables - and double-u, double-u, eff - 7 syllables.

[north star]

(www would be an abbreviation rather than an acronym surely)

[another-view]

No, an acronym is a word made from the initial letters as in WWW. An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word eg pram instead of perambulator.

[crisgal]

but www isn't a word, so how can it be an acronym?

[janzman]

An acronym is a collection of letters that when put together become universally accepted as the shortened version of the original. In the vast majority of cases there will be vowels and consonants thus providing 'words' which can be spoken...NASA...SONAR....LASER once in a while the acronym wont have any vowels and cant be said but will be every bit as important... WWW

[Cheeris]

No, I think northstar and crisgal are right - 'WWW' isn't an acronym. It is an 'initialism'.

While I admit some people characterise initialisms as a subset of acronyms, most authorities explicitly define an acronym as being an actual word in itself, e.g laser, radar, scuba etc. and not just simply a version of the original shortened for convenience.