"Jon Harris" wrote ...
> "Richard Crowley" wrote ...
>> I prefer Merriam-Webster as an arbiter of language
>> over the MS spell-checker. www.m-w.com Handy.
>
> Me too. My only point about the spell-checker was that initialism
> wasn't very commonly used. If you look it up on M-W, you find: "an
> acronym formed from initial letters"
>
> So it doesn't appear to make the distinction between an acronym and an
> initialism based on how it is pronounced.

www.m-w.com is the abridged, free version. If you want to
see the unabridged definition, you have three choices.
1) Lug that big book down from the shelf and dust it off.
2) Pay Merriam-Webster $30/year for a subscription
3) Click through a multi-page advertisment before you
get access to the unabridged dictionary lookup page.

The unabridged definition says:

"an acronym formed from initial letters ; especially : one (as RPG) that
is pronounced as separate letters"
http://unabridged.merriam-webster.co...?va=initialism