Syntax: Article Agreement with Initialisms & Acronyms

Was there a FBI raid last week? Or is that an FBI raid?

Acronym: An acronym is an abbreviation in which the resulting term is pronounced as a single word.

• Examples: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration); OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries); PIN (personal identification number).
• Rule: Since an acronym is pronounced like a regular word, treat it like any other word—only use “an” if the acronym begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u); otherwise, use “a.”
  • Example: “Space Force was a POTUS creation, not a NASA one.”

Initialism: An initialism is an abbreviation in which the individual letters of the word are pronounced separately.

• Examples: NBA (National Basketball Association), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), ATM (automated teller machine).
• Rule: Since an acronym is pronounced letter by letter, the pronunciation of the first letter dictates. So if the initialism starts with a vowel sound, use “an”; otherwise, use “a.”
  • Vowel Sound Examples (“an”): FBI (eff); HDMI (aitch); MBA (em); NBA (en); SQL (es, if pronounced es-cue-el).
  • Consonant Sound Examples (“a”): CDC (see); UCLA (you).

And before you get back to drafting a SCOTUS brief, here are a few example problems to test your understanding![ays_quiz id="21"]