Pronunciation of Acronyms

[nq:1]How should an acronym be pronounced? Should we pronounce each letter, or treat it as a word and try to ... to depend on the acronym(1), but isn't there a hard and fast rule here? (1) e.g.: USA compared to NATO.[/nq]
For everything you could ever want to know about acronyms, initialisms and other abbreviations, see the excellent article in the FAQ.

Ross Howard

[nq:1]How should an acronym be pronounced? Should we pronounce each letter, or treat it as a word and try to pronounce it as such? It would seem to depend on the acronym(1), but isn't there a hard and fast rule here?[/nq]
No.
Adrian

[nq:1]How should an acronym be pronounced?[/nq]
As a word - initialisms that are not thus pronounced are not acronyms.

[nq:1]How should an acronym be pronounced? Should we pronounce each letter, or treat it as a word and try to ... to depend on the acronym(1), but isn't there a hard and fast rule here? (1) e.g.: USA compared to NATO.[/nq]
The ones that are pronouncable get pronounced, the rest get spelled. Exceptions, such as USA and UK, are spelled by custom.
dg (domain=ccwebster)

[nq:2]How should an acronym be pronounced?[/nq]
[nq:1]As a word [/nq]
So you'd pronounce "USA" as "oo-sah", for example?

tom -at- tomjb dot com

[nq:1]For everything you could ever want to know about acronyms, initialisms and other abbreviations, see the excellent article in the FAQ.[/nq]
Aha... will do.
Thanks

tom -at- tomjb dot com

don groves filted:
[nq:2]How should an acronym be pronounced? Should we pronounce each letter, or treat it as a word and try to pronounce it as such?[/nq]
[nq:1]The ones that are pronouncable get pronounced, the rest get spelled. Exceptions, such as USA and UK, are spelled by custom.[/nq]
Exceptions of the other sort, such as AHCCCS (Arizona Health-Care Cost Containment System), are pr

[nq:1]How should an acronym be pronounced? Should we pronounce each letter, or treat it as a word and try to ... to depend on the acronym(1), but isn't there a hard and fast rule here? (1) e.g.: USA compared to NATO.[/nq]
To the purist an acronym is an initialism that is pronounced as a word. So if it isn't usually pronounced as a word, it's not regarded as an acronym.

John Dean
O

[nq:1]To the purist an acronym is an initialism that is pronounced as a word. So if it isn't usually pronounced as a word, it's not regarded as an acronym.[/nq]
Ah. In that case, the question in my reply to Jordan Abel no longer requires answering.
Thanks

tom -at- tomjb dot com

[nq:2]As a word [/nq]
[nq:1]So you'd pronounce "USA" as "oo-sah", for example?[/nq]
No, you abbreviate it to US and pronounce it "us", like in "us, the people".