Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
Speaking is nothing to do with it. Also telegraphic messages might be dictated and telegrams would be read to others. Also the number of acronyms in a language in time correlates with written usage, not oral use. A rise in Literacy creates them.
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The distinction from initialism in Apache's post refers to the fact of it being pronounced as a word, rather that simply saying the letters. (SCUBA or LASER as opposed to FBI or NBC). So if it's not pronounced at all, there's no distinction to make.
If you have evidence to contradict the
Wikipedia article's claim that the word-type acronyms in English are a purely 20th century thing, I'm sure it would make for an interesting thread of it own in some other section.