Mechanical Engineering- Mechanical Project Essay

Mechanical Engineering- Mechanical Project - Essay Example Other than strength and stiffness of materials, other properties like electrical conductivity could become essential when making material selection. The desired function of the intended structure remains the leading elements providing a guideline of material properties. When desired material properties cannot be achieved within any natural material, engineers must construct materials meeting the required structural properties. This includes combining different materials to produce a unique material having the desired chemical and physical properties. This combination of material could be attributed to the development of reinforcement technology utilised in changing properties of materials to meet structural requirements. In metallic materials, the combination of different materials, creating alloys continues to be utilised in enhancing strength of metallic elements. Steel, for example, remains a common utilised material for many engineering structures. The constituents of steel inclu de iron and carbon at different ratios, depending on the desired material strength. Iron remains a material prone to rusting and combination with carbon reduces the rusting property, attributed to iron. Composites could be described as materials made from a combination of materials having different physical and chemical properties, to produce a material with unique properties. The individual properties of the constituent materials become dissolved and the developed material exhibits independent properties (Waterman 2007). Different composites exist within the engineering industry,

Statement of purpose for undergrad in business studies Essay Example for Free

Statement of purpose for undergrad in business studies Essay â€Å"Take up one idea. Make that idea your life- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success†. I read this quote by Swami Vivekananda in 2011 when I was deciding my career choice in 2011 when I was in Grade 11. Initially I was inclined towards science as that’s the preferred career option for most in India. However a deeper analysis, introspection and influence of my parents made me realize my strengths and interests make me more suited for Economics and Business Studies. My family has been a major influence – my father and maternal uncle are both engineers with an MBA from top business schools and have made a great career for themselves. My father is into international business development and marketing and has made a successful career. After deciding on Commerce and Business Studies, I scored 91. 2 % (top 10 % in the CBSE across in grade 12 and made it to the top 10 % of candidates who took the board exam nationwide. After 12th grade, I took an entrance exam and qualified for the interview and group discussion round by securing a national rank of 143. I made it to the top 80 students to get admission to the coveted College of business studies, Delhi University (voted as Asias best undergraduate management college by the Commonwealth of Nations). Good academic performance in my school and college, active participation in academic as well as extra-curricular activities in several marketing activity groups and several part time and full time internships during college have helped me to develop analytical, communication and social interaction skills. I now feel strongly that I would like to pursue this career further. During the one and a half years of my undergraduate studies, I interacted with students from different cultural and social backgrounds. The college has a strong culture of developing practical skills and nurturing entrepreneurship. Most students got campus placements and more than 60 % students chose management consulting and marketing as career options. I used to visit NGO’s and teach students on weekends but I wanted to do something bigger. I got through Kartavya ( The social service club of my college) and here, I organized blood donation camps and collection drives in college, visited slums , organized movie screenings and talent shows for the unprivileged children living in orphanages and the happiness I got by seeing them happy is inexpressible. I was a part of MIC (The Management Interaction Cell) wherein my team co-hosted an event with FICCI ( Federation of Indian chambers of commerce and Industry ). I was given the role of Director, Human resources at DUMUN (Delhi University Model United Nations) where my key roles involved raising funds for our national level event, managing and ensuring co-ordination in the team and representing my team to the college authorities. While organizing and hosting these events, I led teams and was appreciated for my leadership skills and dedication towards my clubs. I started enjoying the whole process of recruiting new members, leading them, pitching to prospective sponsors to raise funds and managing the working of the team . This was the time I realized that I enjoy leading people and it is something I can do well. Academically, I balanced my studies well with my co-curriculars and always scored 80% and above in my semesters. I enjoyed every bit of my course and thoroughly researched on all my projects. Business Research, Organizational Behavior and Marketing management have been my favorite subjects in college. The project I enjoyed the most was a live project in Public Relations for which I studied the Cadbury worm crisis and took interviews of employees there to gain first hand knowledge over their crisis. CBS has made me confident about my choice of stream and made me realize my ambitions in life. To quench my thirst for practical management knowledge, I went on to join Vodafone as an HR intern where my assignment was to check employee satisfaction by conducting surveys, suggest better schemes and analyze the areas where improvement was required. Later, I also joined Brand Hawkers as a Marketing trainee. My job assignment involved creating a prospect list of advertising partners for our ‘SmartBooks’ product, qualifying and pitching to them and facilitating their engagement with Brand Hawkers. During this assignment I realized that marketing was the forte I wanted to excel in since this is what I enjoyed the most. It didn’t seem like work to me but it was simply fun. I am confident of my abilities to carve a niche for myself in this field of Business Management. I am ready to take the desired steps to achieve my ultimate goal.

Importance and Benefits of Energy Conservation

Importance and Benefits of Energy Conservation Energy is defined as the capacity of a physical system to perform work. In other words, It can be explained as the ability to perform or complete any type of work whether it is physical or mental activity. We can also explain â€Å"energy† which includes physical movements like shifting something from one place to another, warming something or lighting something. Energy exists in numerous forms such as heat, kinetic or mechanical energy, light, potential energy, electrical or many other forms. It can be better described by giving the below mentioned natural example of environment, it shows a chain cycle of converting different forms of energy into heat and power: Oil burns to make heat Heat boils water Water turns to steam Steam pressure turns a turbine Turbine turns an electric generator Generator produces electricity Electricity powers light bulbs Light bulbs give off light and heat We utilize energy in different forms in our daily routine life and cannot think even about to survive without it. We use energy to light our homes and for street lighting as well, to be able to power machineries and equipments in factories, helps to cook our food, for playing music and operating televisions and many more every day regular uses. Energy Conservation: It is the practice of reducing the quantity of energy used. It may be attained through efficient energy use; in this case, energy use is decreased at the same time getting a same outcome as a result, or by reduced consumption of energy services. It is one of the easiest processes to help the globe by means of pollution in addition to make use of natural energy. It may result in increase of financial capital, better environmental results, national security, personal security and human comfort. Individuals and companies are called as direct consumers of energy may need to conserve energy so as to reduce energy expenses and promote economic security. Industrial and business class users may want to increase the efficiency and as a result, it maximizes their benefits as well. Energy conservation is the reduction or removal of unnecessary or unwanted energy use. Importance Of Energy Conservation: Energy conservation plays a significant role of lessening climate change. It helps the replacement of non-renewable resources with renewable energy. Energy conservation is often the most inexpensive solution to energy shortages, and it is more environmentally kind alternative to increased energy production. Since, we have limited quantity of non-renewable energy resources available on earth, it is very important to preserve energy from our current supply or to utilize renewable resources so that it is also available to our future generations. Energy conservation plays a very important role because utilization of non-renewable resources also impacts our environment. Specially, usage of fossil fuels supplies to air and water pollution such as carbon dioxide is produced when oil, coal and gas combust in power stations, heating systems, and engines of car. As we all aware of that carbon dioxide works as a transparent layer in the atmosphere that is part of the cause to the global warming of the earth, or we can also name it as greenhouse effect. Global warming has its own consequences in our atmosphere. It has its deadly effects like spreading of different diseases, warmer waters and more chances of hurricanes, financial costs, polar ice melting, increased chances and intensity of heat waves. Ozone depletion is the reduction of the protection layer of ozone in the uppermost atmosphere by chemical pollution. Ozone layer is the protection line between earth and the ultraviolet rays emitted by the sun. People who have more exposure to UV radiation can have some health problems like DNA damage, skin cancer, aging and other problems related to skin. There could be some possible issues that include a danger to human body health, impact on environment like rising sea levels, and major changes in vegetation growth methods. When coal is burned, it realises sulphur dioxide into the air and therefore, it reacts with water and oxygen in the clouds and forms acid rain. Acid rain kills fish and trees and also damage limestone buildings and statutes. These types of global problems can be resolved. As per the data of United States calculated per year, we found that the average familys energy uses produces over 11,200 pounds of air pollutants. Therefore, every unit of kilowatt of electricity preserved diminishes the natural environment impact of energy use. There are some facts which considerably decrease the utility bills of a family. Following are some points covered in Pollution Prevention (P2) concepts which help you to control energy use and methods to conserve energy:- Altering what you normally use in your daily routine: You should walk or ride a bicycle instead of driving a car and as a result, it emits to roughly 60% of air pollution. At our homes, you should use lights which consume less energy and continue till 10 times more than bright light bulbs. For saving energy in normal daily routine activities like we should air dry our clothes rather than using dryers. We should fit a thermostat which regulates the temperature automatically. Search for that energy appliances which reduce your monthly electricity bills. Changing your activities you do in your everyday practice: You should plant trees close to your window for natural air, so there will be less usage of air conditioners. Recycle items used in household activities such as cans, plastic water bottles, and newspapers. It saves energy and raw material for making the same product. Wash down clothes in filled loads in washing machine and in cold water. Use settings on washing machines, dryers and dishwashers for saving energy. Set the room temperature in thermostat up to 65O F when you are at home and decrease the temperature to 55O F, when you are going to sleep. Lastly, you should improve your housekeeping habits in such a way that saves more energy like turning off lights when you are not present in room or not at home, close your heating vents and doors in rooms which are not utilizing any more, clean your air filters regularly in winters as well as in summers, it will work more powerfully and for long period as well. For making a proper use of energy and conserving it, you should share and communicate these facts and information with others in your family, friends and neighbours. There are many other activities which help people to do with conserving or saving energy. For example, we can take the example of a light bulb we use for lighting our homes; we could also recycle it and can utilize solar energy instead of using electricity during the day. Conserving energy is very important for the reasons that we use most of the energy resources are non-renewable. So as to make proper utilization of these resources, we require finding to begin our search for natural resources. We should use wind power, solar power energy, hydroelectricity, and bio-fuels and as a result that will make our environment healthier and better. (United States Environmental Protection Agency, August 1997) As far as the question of living and non-living factors are concerned, the non living factors like sunlight, temperature, rainfall, water and soil. Both the sunlight and the temperature contribute to the energy consumption. If we could use the sunlight in place of light switches in the home as well as we can open the windows instead of running the air conditioners that can also cuts out a tremendous amount of electricity that we can utilize later on. In case of water, instead of making use of non-renewable source of energy to recycle the used water or overflow, the plants can be way out to using solar powered and wind powered energy instead. For the soil, option to men farming by hand rather than machines. If we would grow our own gardens at home instead of running to the vegetable store for tomatoes or other vegetables, we have many natural resources available to make use of, so that we become always be active and not lazy. As far as it is related to living factors, which also contributes to energy consumption are animals like herbivores, carnivores and omnivores; human beings and marine life. In above all, only human beings are the main contributors. We are using the natural energy available to us and also sometimes damage the environment to some extent. (Basics of Energy Efficient Living: A Beginners Guide to Alternative Energy and Home Energy Savings by Lonnie Wibberding, 2006) Sustainability is a planned method focused by a good business judgement to decrease operating cost and to increase ROI (return on investment). A sustainability strategy is also motivated by an increased customers expectation for â€Å"green† suppliers and enterprise risk management. I have developed some under mentioned sustainability strategies and their solutions that will educate and illustrate the members of our society:- Sustainability Goals: Social Goals Ecological Goals Social Goals: Improve human health and safety: It is designed to develop and put into practice a structure for health which will ultimately enhance personal and organizational health and well-being as well as improve safety and security. Following action plans should be taken into consideration:- Set up measurements and situate targets for promoting health and wellness. Expand and apply an early interference program to support the improvement and go back to work Settle on efficiency of active tools Promote new software and data collection systems Increase current programs and journal articles that support health Ecological Goals: Reduce pollution Conserve resources Reduce pollution: It reduces greenhouse gas releases and develop air quality. It also reduces all forms of water and gets better waste removal procedures. It also make better storm water quality Following under mentioned points should be taken into concerned:- Buy BC Hydrogen green energy certificates Build up a transportation graph to maintain annual average automobile traffic campus Support the purchase of local products or commodities whenever possible To extend new programmes to instruct the society concerning the significance of waste management Create clear principle for waste management and utilize of recycled materials Enlarge programs to decrease the amount of dangerous waste generated Conserve Resources: It diminishes non-renewable energy consumption and reduces water consumption and use of paper. Discover the usage of renewable sources of energy like hydrogen power, micro hydro, ground resources heat pumps, and incorporated photovoltaic knowledge To make sure new building designs, both residential and institutional, think about future change to alternate energy sources To plan new buildings to decrease the usage of water Diminish irrigation requires during landscape plan, and other programmes planned to conserve water To grow and execute campus-wide procedure for exchanging from paper to paper on-line communications for mainly inner operations To increase alternatives for purchasing paper with recycled content (The Sustainability Strategy, May, 2006) We are facing some problems related to power shortage because everyone cannot afford the electricity bills. So, we should plan to do some point urgently to get out of this wasteful style affecting all sectors in our economy. The under mentioned energy conservation measures have been taken by the government to solve our energy problems:- Installation of efficient power plants: For planning efficiency, we should bring havoc in terms of economic issues and environmental pollution. We can find that combined cycle power plant is being installed with inlet cooling to make sure the power plant can function at peak efficiency and peak capacity in summers. Power generation in industrial and commercial sectors is also a source of immense waste. To encourage high efficiency, special incentives should be offered to industries and commercial complexes to encourage efficient utilization. Also, high efficiency installations should be provided gas on a year round basis where load shedding is followed in winter. Efficient steam or hot water production: There are many companies even now operating boilers by making use of our costly gas. All these steam/hot water needs can be effectively formed which means with the similar gas consumption we can produce hundreds of megawatt of power and as a result can meet altogether the steam/hot water requirements. Efficient central air-conditioning:- The government sanctioned many companies to install centralised air-conditioning without making sure of economical utilization. Time is passing out and proper steps should be planned for reasonable power as soon as possible. (Paper Articles on Urgent energy conservation steps needed, January, 2009) References United States Environmental Protection Agency. (August 1997). Energy conservation pollution prevention (P2). Lonnie Wibberding. (2006). Basics of Energy Efficient Living: A Beginners Guide to Alternative Energy and Home Energy Savings . Inspirations and Aspirations: The Sustainability Strategy. (May, 2006). Paper articles on Urgent energy conservation steps needed. (January, 2009).

Fanons The Wretched Of The Earth and Foucaults Discipline and Punish :: Wretched Of The Earth Essays

Fanon's  The Wretched Of The Earth and  Foucault's Discipline and Punish Fanon's book, "The Wretched Of The Earth" like Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" question the basic assumptions that underlie society. Both books writers come from vastly different perspectives and this shapes what both authors see as the technologies that keep the populace in line. Foucault coming out of the French intellectual class sees technologies as prisons, family, mental institutions, and other institutions and cultural traits of French society. In contrast Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) born in Martinique into a lower middle class family of mixed race ancestry and receiving a conventional colonial education sees the technologies of control as being the white colonists of the third world. Fanon at first was a assimilationist thinking colonists and colonized should try to build a future together. But quickly Fanon's assimilationist illusions were destroyed by the gaze of metropolitan racism both in France and in the colonized world. He responded to the shattering of his neo-colonial identity, his white mask, with his first book, Black Skin, White Mask, written in 1952 at the age of twenty-seven and originally titled "An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks." Fanon defined the colonial relationship as one of the non recognition of the colonized's humanity, his subjecthood, by the colonizer in order to justify his exploitation. Fanon's next novel, "The Wretched Of The Earth" views the colonized world from the perspective of the colonized. Like Foucault's questioning of a disciplinary society Fanon questions the basic assumptions of colonialism. He questions whether violence is a tactic that should be employed to eliminate colonialism. He questions whether native intellectuals who have adopted western methods of thought and urge slow decolonization are in fact part of the same technology of control that the white world employs to exploit the colonized. He questions whether the colonized world should copy the west or develop a whole new set of values and ideas. In all these questionings of basic assumptions of colonialism Fanon exposes the methods of control the white world uses to hold down the colonies. Fanon calls for a radical break with colonial culture, rejecting a hypocritical European humanism for a pure revolutionary consciousness. He exalts violence as a necessary pre-condition for this rupture. Fanon supported the most extreme wing of the FLN, even opposing a negotiated transition to power. His book though sees the relationship and methods of control in a simplistic light; he classifies whites, and native intellectuals who have adopted western values and tactics as enemies.

Literature Review – Work Choices of Married Women

Literature review The labour supply of women has been the subject of extensive study both in Australia and internationally. 1 Despite this, only a few international and Australian studies have examined the inter-temporal labour supply behaviour of women, and it remains a less understood area of labour supply research (Hyslop 1999). 2 However, study in this area is growing rapidly due to the increasing availability of panel data and improved computational power and techniques. This chapter reviews a selection of studies of inter-temporal labour supply of women in Australian and overseas. Past research Several international studies have examined inter-temporal persistence in labour supply. Shaw (1994) used the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) over the period 1967-1987 to measure persistence in (annual) working hours of white women in the United States. She found evidence of (statistically) significant persistence in an individual’s labour supply even after controlling for other influencing factors — such as wages, the age and number of children and individual health status. Further, the extent of persistence was found to have changed little over the 20 year period studied. Shaw also found that unobserved (time invariant) individual heterogeneity played an important role in the persistence. However, the study did not examine whether the persistence also resulted from unobserved transitory shocks (or errors) that might be serially correlated. Hyslop (1999), also using the PSID data (for the period 1979-1985), examined the dynamics of labour force participation of married women in the United States and found evidence of state dependence. While unobserved individual heterogeneity was found to contribute to the persistence of labour force participation, transitory 1 For a detailed survey of the international literature on women’s labour supply, see Killingsworth (1983), Killingsworth and Heckman (1986) and Heckman (1993). 2 A few studies also examine inter-temporal labour supply behaviour of men, such as Muhleisen and Zimmermann (1994) for Germany and Arulampalam, Booth and Taylor (2000) for the United Kingdom. LITERATURE REVIEW 5 rrors were found to be negatively correlated over time, suggesting that failing to control for serially correlated transitory errors would lead to underestimation of state dependence. The non-labour income of married women, measured by their partner’s earnings, was also found to have a negative effect on their labour force participation. Permanent non-labour income was found to be more important in affecting a woman’s labour force participation than transitory non-labour income. The age and number of young children were also found to have a significant negative effect on the labour force participation decisions of women. Inter-temporal persistence in women’s labour supply was also examined by Lee and Tae (2005) using the first four waves (1998-2001) of the Korean Labour and Income Panel Study. Without considering serial correlation of transitory errors, the authors found that both state dependence and unobserved individual heterogeneity were important in explaining inter-temporal persistence in the labour force participation of women. They also found that the extent of state dependence of labour force participation varied with education, marital status and age. State dependence was found to increase with age, and was higher for married than for single women and higher for women with a junior college level of education relative to those with other levels of education. In the Australian context, very little research exists on the inter-temporal persistence of labour market activity. One study, Knights et al. 2002), examined labour market dynamics of Australian youth (those aged 15-29 years), using the Australian Longitudinal Survey over the period 1985-1988. Dynamic labour market activity of both males and females was analysed separately, with each group being further divided into high and low education groups. High education was defined as the completion of secondary school; with the low education defined as secondary school not being completed. Only two labour force states were examined — employed or not em ployed (binary variable). The authors found that an individual’s employment status in the previous year predicted his/her employment status in the currently year for all the four gender-education groups, suggesting evidence of state dependence of employment status. They also found evidence that unobserved individual heterogeneity was important explanatory factor in the persistence of employment status for all groups examined. Like Lee and Tae (2005), however, Knights et al. (2002) did not examine whether the observed persistence was due to serially correlated transitory errors. Some studies have also examined the effect of serially correlated transitory errors on inter-temporal persistence. Tatsiramos (2008), for example, examined female employment dynamics in seven European countries (Demark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) to test the effects of fertility had on employment status. State dependence was found in the employment status for 6 WORK CHOICES OF MARRIED WOMEN: DRIVERS OF CHANGE women in all countries after controlling for observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity and serially correlated transitory errors. The magnitude of state dependence as measured by average partial effects was very similar across all the countries studied, with the probability of a women being employed being 31 to 49 percentage points higher if employed in the previous year. Like Hyslop (1999), Tatsiramos (2008) also found that transitory errors are negatively correlated over time for all countries, and only in the case of Denmark, was the serial correlation insignificant. Permanent non-labour income was found to have a significant and negative effect on labour supply for all countries except Denmark and the United Kingdom, where the effect was positive. In case of the Netherlands and Italy, a woman’s transitory non-labour income was also found to decrease labour supply. Summing up Much of the existing literature of the inter-temporal behaviour of labour supply has focused on whether or not a woman is involved in paid work — a binary choice measured as labour force participation or employment status. In contrast, the approach taken in this study is to examine working hours as a measure of labour supply, and thus treat non-employment (those with zero working hours) as a censored outcome. Further, there are no Australian (and few international) studies that have examined both the effect of observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity and serially correlated transitory errors on inter-temporal labour supply. Despite this, studies of labour force participation by Australian women, comprehensively reviewed by Birch (2005), provide a valuable guide to the choice of explanatory variables. Although the estimates vary across studies and are sensitive to model specifications and estimation techniques, some patterns emerge. The studies generally found that increases in a woman’s wages, educational attainment, labour market experience, and the cost of living, all have a positive effect on a woman’s labour supply. Conversely increases in family income and the number of dependent young children had a negative effect. 3 In this study the focus is on hours worked of individuals. The individual level measures are used to obtain corresponding aggregate indicators of labour supply such as the labour force participation rate, the employment rate and total hours worked of all employed persons, and average hours worked per employed person. LITERATURE REVIEW 7

1 Upper-Intermediate Essays - Apostrophe, English Spelling

1 Upper-Intermediate Essays - Apostrophe, English Spelling 1 Upper-Intermediate Covering Letters 1: Letter Content The letter of application you send with your CV is sometimes called a covering letter. It is usually the first direct contact between a candidate and an employer, so make sure it is well-written and presented. It should normally contain 3-4 paragraphs. Here is a list of points you should include: Say that you would like to apply Say where you found out about the job Say why you would like the job Say why you are qualified to do the job Say you can provide more information if necessary Say when you would be available for interview Covering Letters 2: Useful phrases Vocabulary advertised made known to people to apply to ask in a formal way to be considered for a job to pursue to have, to chase, to follow to work well under pressure to be able to keep calm and do a good job in difficult situations Select the correct words so that this covering letter is in good English. Dear Mr Saleh, I am writing to 1) _____ a _____ for the position of Editorial Assistant which was 2 )_ ___ _ b _____ in the latest edition of Gulf News. I am currently 3)_____ b _____ by a Market Research company as a research assistant, but am keen to 4)____ b _____ a career in publishing, because I enjoy reading and write my own poetry. As you will notice on the 5) ______ c ______ CV, I graduated in European Literature. At University I gained considerable 6) ______ c _______ working on the student magazine, so I am 7) ____ c _____ with editing techniques. I work well under 8) ______ c ______ and enjoy working in a team. In addition, I speak English 9) _____ b _____. I would be 10) _____ a _____ for interview from next week. Meanwhile, please do not 11 ) _ _____ a _______ to contact me if you require further information. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely, Margaret Roan 1 a) apply b) ask c) request 2 a) shown b) advertised c) presented 3 a) worked b) employed c) used 4 a) want b) pursue c) take 5 a) included b) mentioned c) attached 6 a) experiment b) expression c) experience 7 a) familiarised b) familier c) familiar 8 a) anxiety b) demands c) pressure 9 a) excellently b) fluently c) strongly 10 a) available b) around c) accessible 11 a) hesitate b) wait c) stop Covering Letters 3 : Style (part 1) Vocabulary informal relaxed, friendly slang very informal words and language idiomatic language language using groups of words which have a certain meaning that is different from the ordinary meaning of each individual word e.g. 'My boss bit my head off when I was late for work' (my boss was angry and told me off) complex complicated, not simple Decide whether the following tips for writing covering letters are true or false. The letter should be as friendly a nd informal as possible - False You should avoid slang id iomatic language - True Your sentences should be long and complex - False It is fine to use contracted forms (e.g. I'm, it's) - False Emotive words (wonderful, great, terrible) should be avoided - True Covering Letters 4 : Style (part 2) Here are some common phrases you might use when applying for a job. However, the prepositions are missing - type out the correct ones choosing words from the table below. to of under in for I would like to apply1) _____for_____ the position 2) _____of_____ If you would like to discuss this 3 ) ____ in _____ more detail I enjoy working 4 ) _ ____ under _______ pressure I was5 ) _____ in ____ _ charge _ _____ of ______ I was responsible6 ) ____ for _____ With reference 7 ) _______ to _______

Acronym vs. Initialism

Acronym vs. Initialism Acronym vs. Initialism Acronym vs. Initialism By Maeve Maddox Every so often I’m taken to task for referring to an unpronounceable string of letters as an acronym instead of an initialism. I’m sure there must be contexts in which the distinction is important, but I’ve never felt the need to distinguish between acronyms and initialisms in writing for a general audience. For one thing, the word initialism in its modern sense is even newer than the word acronym. There is no entry for initialism in either of my pre-digital dictionaries: Websters New Collegiate Dictionary (1960). The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971). The presumably more up-to-date Word spell checker puts a red line under the word initialism as I type this article. Note: The word initialism illustrated by OED citations dated 1899 and 1928 was not being used in the modern sense of initials used to identify an entity like the FBI. It refers to the once-popular practice of signing a published work with initials in order to conceal the identity of the author. Most readers probably know that an acronym is an invented word made up of the initial letters or syllables of other words, like NASA or NATO. Fewer probably know that an initialism is a type of acronym that cannot be pronounced as a word, but must be read letter-by-letter, like FBI or UCLA. German had the word Akronym as early as 1921, meaning â€Å"a new word made up of initials.† Americans adopted the word with the English spelling acronym in the 1940s. These dated citations from the OED show that from 1940 to the 21st century, what some speakers now prefer to call initialisms have been called acronyms since the word was adopted into English: 1947 The acronym DDTtrips pleasantly on the tongue and is already a household byword. 1975 The puns on the acronym, ‘CIA’, were spawned by recent disclosures about the intelligence agency. 1985 Called by the acronym SCSD (Schools Construction System Development). 2008 The acronym TSS- Tout Sauf Sarkozy (‘Anything But Sarkozy’). If it is important to you to distinguish between acronyms (NATO, NASA) and initialisms (FBI, TGIF) then by all means, do so. But if you are speaking to or writing for a general audience, it’s not an error to generalize all words and labels created from initials or parts of words under the broad term acronym. Related post: Initialisms and Acronyms Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 Types of Narrative Conflict26 Feel-Good WordsHow Do You Determine Whether to Use Who or Whom?