I love pedantry, but have learned to avoid it. But since we're all here pedanting (I made that up)...

There is some debate as to whether an acronym actually has to become a pronouncable word, such as laser or radar or scuba, in order to be classified as an acronym. Some say FBI, for example, is not an acronym, but an initialism.

Feh - I don't think the issue is real. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says of acronym:

a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters : initialism

Furthermore, there is the evidence of the incredibly clever Three Letter Acronym, or TLA, of which TLA is a TLA. TLA is pronounced tee el ay. Yet most do not dispute its acronymity.

Wikipedia does dispute it. and claims that TLA is stands for Three Letter Abbreviation, and is self referential, or if it stands for Three Letter Acronym, it is not self-referential. That, of course, is a load of crap, and to be expected from an untrusted source such as Wikipedia. Everybody knows that Mrs. is an abbreviation, and it is three letters, but it is not a TLA.

Now if it was TLI, I could get behind the idea that it is a Three Letter Initialism, but that's just bogus.

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