By Any Other Name   

The October/November issue spells out AJR, CIA and other common abbreviations and calls them acronyms ("Drop Cap"). Actually, these are initialisms. An acronym is an initialism that is pronounced as a word, such as radar. Merriam-Webster equates an acronym with an initialism, but I do not agree, nor do Webster's New World College Dictionary (used by the Associated Press), the New American Oxford Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary.

Richard Weiner
Miami Beach, Florida