The dictionary definition (external link) of "abbreviate" means simply "to make shorter". From that definition, I would say that an acronym is a specific type of abbreviation.

The dictionary defintion (another external link) of "acronym" could be interpreted to mean what you say, but I don't think it has to be. The defintion given above says nothing about being able to pronounce the series of letters, just that it is a word formed by the first letters of the word series (or parts of the word series), which would include "IBM".

I typicaly think of an abbreviation as a shortening of a single word, such as "Inc."

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send money to your kernel via the boot loader.. This and more wisdom available from Markov Hardburn.

In reply to Re^3: Determining if a word is really an abbreviation by hardburn
in thread Determining if a word is really an abbreviation by Anonymous Monk

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