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Questions tagged [initialisms]

An initialism is an abbreviation which consists of the initial components of a phrase or word, and which is mainly pronounced by spelling the initialism aloud.

Some examples: IRS, BBC, and UK. All of these are formed from the initial components (in this case, the first letters) of their respective phrases (Internal Revenue Service, British Broadcasting Corporation, and United Kingdom).

For further information, see the Wikipedia page on acronyms and initialisms.

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97 questions
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initialism for names starting with a digraph

What is the rule of initialism for names starting with digraph that is usually considered as a single letter? For instance, some non-Latin single letter transcribes to a digraph (e.g., Russian: Yu in Юрий->Yuri, Chinese: Zh in Zhang, etc.). Should I…
Ma Ming
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How to pluralize the following initialism

I'm having difficulty finding an answer to this. If I need to pluralize the following phrase "Request for Support" to "Requests for Support" would I put it as, RFSs, RFS's, RsFS, R.F.S.'s, R.'sF.S. or RFSes? This is an honest argument I am having at…
Initialism not Acronym
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Initial First Name Last Name

Is it acceptable to put your first name initial followed by last name in a written document. For example, if the name is John Smith to say J. Smith? Is it appropriate?
user384726
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