About initialisms

In our reading, we see that when many people write they often use special abbreviations called initialisms (sometimes called alphabetisms). It can be a bit baffling and bothersome to look up the definition of the initialism in order to get the full understanding of what you are reading. A well-read person is familiar with many of these special abbreviations, especially ones used in the jargon of their occupation. Our non-static language holds thousands upon thousands of these short ways to write words.

I came across one in something I was reading and did not have any idea as to the reference or meaning in the said writing. Even after searching for various definitions, I still had no clue what the writer was talking about. Of course, there may have been an attributed meaning for “MT” that I encountered, that is not common and escapes resources. Nevertheless, a careful writer would explain the first use of the abbreviation and certainly would avoid the use in formal writing.

My experienced knowledge tells me MT is the U.S. postal state of Montana without the full stop or period, which the USPS kicked in October 1963. From elementary school geography classes I learned that with an uppercase "M" and a lowercase "t" punctuated with a period following the "t" (primarily American usage) would mean Mount like in Mt. Rainier or Mt. McKinley. Or, American English reference to Mount Halla, Mount Jiri and Mount Taebaek. From college biology, Mt without a fullstop would mean mitochondria; organelles which are the powerhouses of our cells. Other than those meanings, I am at a loss with the exception that I as well as you could contrive and assign meanings. The British find that using fullstops in abbreviations is somewhat tiresome and unnecessary and this side of the Atlantic is rejecting the obsolete practice by omitting the periods.

We find commonality in other languages. In Korean, most are familiar with KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) and SKY (Seoul National, Korea and Yonsei Universities).

When reading, my preference is the expanded form of the initialism. However, I’m guilty of using the unchallenged shortcuts as well. It is not definitely settled on the decisive use of, and pronunciation of, and definitions of shortened forms, including acronyms which are basically initialisms that can be pronounced as an accepted full word like NATO or NASA. And, we have redundant acronym phrases like “ATM machine” and “PIN number” wherein meanings respectively are “Automated Teller Machine” machine, and, “Personal Identification Number” number.

Dictionaries differ and style guides differ. And, whoever they may be, authorities debate and differ. Sometimes brevity is at a premium, because “As literacy spread and technology produced a constant stream of new and complex terms, abbreviations became increasingly convenient.” There is especially high use in and with social media platforms. Too, the military and medical arenas spawned a massive number of special abbreviations.

I don’t wish to school anyone, however, I would say that when dealing with an international audience it is probably best to limit the use as it may decrease clarity among one's audience. Attributive meaning and usage may differ across cultures.

The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella "Beyond Harvard" and presently teaches English as a second language.