Not an acronyn, really
Well, nit picking it may be. I prefer to think of it as precision in our spoken and written language. I'm happy to see that the actual heading in The Library is
Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Terms, and that one of the lists to which it is linked is headed
acronym, abbreviation, or initialism.
There's a difference between an acronym and an abbreviation.
In brief, an
acronym is a
pronouncable abbreviation, formed by (usually) the initial letters of the words of a phrase. Since you can't really pronounce JBT, it is an abbreviation.
A common
acronym is one that stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, pronounced "
NAY-Toe." Another
acronym, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, may be said "
NASS-Uh."
The common
abbreviation, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is difficult to pronounce as a word, so we normally speak the letters: "
See-Eye-A." A General Purpose Machine Gun is called a "
Gee-Pee-Em-Gee."
Strangely, some few abbreviations which could easily be pronounced as a word (acronym) are not handled that way. Amongst firearms students, the abbreviation for Browning Automatic Rifle is termed a "
Bee-A-Are," not a "Bar."
Documentation:
From the
Oxford American Dictionary:
abbreviate to shorten (especially a word or title) . . . .
abbreviation 1. Abbreviating, being abbreviated. 2. a shortened form of a word of title . . . .
acronym a word formed from the initial letters of other words, as NATO, radar.
Concerning the reference lists in The Library - -
Truly, I'd like to know who, which actual person, compiled that top list,
Common Acronyms/Terms (Local), internally titled
Misc. Useful Acronyms. This is where, amongst a LOT of useful information, we find the perjorative term "JBT." In truth, this offensive term has no more place on such a list than does the 1960s term "pig" for police officer. And. please, let's dont get into the "Pride, Integrity, Guts" bushwa. This is the sort of rationale the bigots use to explain other offensive words such as
WOG, WOP, chink, kike, and
nigger. (None of which, I note, are included in that list.)
Sorry about that - - A pet peeve of mine has bloomed into a minor rant.
Best
Johnny