Glossary Definition

A glossary, sometimes also known as a vocabulary, is described as an alphabetical list of terms in a particular area of knowledge with a common definitions for those terms. Generally a glossary contains explanations of concepts that are relevant to a certain field of study or action.

Terms used in a glossary are usually follow some general guidelines and are composed of abbreviations, or acronyms, or some other form of shorting of words or phrases.

Abbreviation

An abbreviation is probably the most widely used term for a shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase. Abbreviations of single words are typically formed using the first letter or letters of the word (n. = noun; adj. = adjective), the first letter and the last letter (hr. = hour; Sr. = Senior), or the most significant letters (TNT = trinitrotoluene; Pvt. = Private).

Abbreviations have existed for centuries and are as old as writing itself; and they allow a writer to save time, space, and effort. The cost of materials like parchment, paper, and ink was formally a major impetus to shorten words and phrases. Despite the invention of the printing press, the cost remained important, and printers looked for ways to save space without diluting the message.

Many abbreviations have become standard, including abbreviations for days of the week (Mon., Tues.) and months of the year (Jan., Feb.); common Latin terms (lb., e.g.); units of time and measurement (min., ft.); titles of individuals (Mrs., Rev.); and titles or names of organizations (NCAA, UNESCO), government bodies (SCOTUS, EPA), and states and cities (Pa., NYC).

The usual practice in American English is to use a period to end any abbreviation that stands for a single word: for example, assoc. or assn. for association), whereas in British English the period is typically omitted if the abbreviation includes the last letter of the word. For example, in British writing the word association might be abbreviated as either assoc. or assn (without the period); likewise, Fr. is an abbreviation for France, while Fr (no period) is the abbreviation for Father (as the title for a priest).

Initialism

It is also common for a phrase to be typically abbreviated by using the first letters or initial portions of each word or each important word, usually without any periods. Similarly, a single long word is sometimes abbreviated with the initial letters of component parts of the word. Unlike ordinary abbreviations for single words, which are almost always read as if the word were spelled out (as by reading “Dr.” as “Doctor” and “lb.” as “pound”), abbreviations consisting of initials are usually read as written—either letter by letter or as a single word. An abbreviation that is pronounced letter by letter, like FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation or DOD for Department of Defense or TV for television, is referred to as an initialism.

Acronym

Many abbreviations for phrases, however, are pronounced as words: for example, NATO for N(orth) A(tlantic) T(reaty) O(rganization) or radar for ra(dio) d(etecting) a(nd) r(anging). This type of abbreviation is called an acronym. Some acronyms, like radar, laser, scuba, and Gestapo, have become accepted as normal words and many people are unaware of their acronymic origins. In some cases an official name may be chosen purely to create an appropriate and catchy acronym, as in the federal "Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act" of 2010 (the "CALM Act").

In a loose sense, initialism can refer to any abbreviation composed of initials, even if pronounced as a word; conversely, acronym has been widely adopted to refer to any such abbreviation, even if it is pronounced letter by letter. But the distinction between true acronyms (pronounced as words) and pure initialisms (said letter by letter), is a useful one.

To complicate the issue, however, there are hybrid forms—part initialism, part acronym—like CD-ROM and JPEG — for which one term is as good as the other.

Some common examples of acronyms include:

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

scuba - self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

radar - radio detection and ranging

GCSEs standard attainment tests (tests taken by schoolchildren in the UK)

Newer acronyms are written with capital letters:

Sam received his GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education) next week – he’s a little bit nervous.

Upper or Lower case?

There is often some confusion as to whether acronyms should be expressed in upper or lower case. In general where the acronym has existed for a long time and become fully established in the language, it is often written with small letters (or with one capital letter if it is at the beginning of a sentence):

The ship’s radar had been destroyed in battle.

Radar was one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century.

We went scuba-diving in Australia.

Some acronyms are pronounced as a combination of letters and syllables:

She sent me a jpeg file with a photo of her wedding. (joint photographic experts group)

You can buy the dictionary on CD-ROM. (compact disc read-only memory)

Some acronyms are used in the plural or possessive:

Are the pictures on your memory stick jpegs or bitmaps?

NATO’s foreign policy has been criticised recently.

Email, Text Messaging Initialisms

With the increasing popularity of email, text messaging, and social media, people have found new ways to save time and space, bond with friends through use of in-group jargon, and keep their communications opaque to prying parental eyes, by using initialisms to represent common expressions. The cost in time and effort in writing the full text of a word or phase being especially attractive. Among the most popular are OMG (Oh my God), BTW (by the way), AFAIK (as far as I know), LOL (laughing out loud), ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing), IMHO (in my humble opinion), FWIW (for what it’s worth), TTYL (talk to you later), and bff (best friends forever). BTW, IMHO, the rest of the population is catching on fast. OMG!

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