HPC

[Mart]

... except that they are abbreviations! E.g. a Quango is an acronym because you can say/pronounce it...

Well, if we are being unecessarily pedantic .....

I thought quango was a semi made up term (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation) back when the press and 'a bloke down the pub', where trying to complain about NDPB's and ASPB's (non deparmental public bodies / Assembly sponsored public bodies). But those terms don't sound bad (unlike quango), and most people couldn't even name an NDPB, but they all needed to be banned ...... not understanding the role they do, such as the Environment Agency etc.

NDPB isn't exactly pronounceable.

you could say that "unnecessarily pedantic" was a matter of taste anyway! I suspect that if you think a correction is necssary then by definition you are a pedant...
anyway, I found a definition online:

The word acronym typically applies when the resulting thing can be read as a word; for example, radar comes from "radio detection and ranging" and scuba comes from "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus." The word initialism only applies when the resulting thing is read as an abbreviation; for example DIY, which comes from "do it yourself," is pronounced by saying the names of the letters.

Hi, I think you missed the point, you were saying that quango was pronounceable, in order to correct Dan, and I was explaining that it is a made up (sort of) acronym, relating to NDPB's which isn't easily pronoucable. So just playfully correcting your correction. HTH.

[Mart]

TIL - another classic of the TLA genre

(TLA - three letter acronym!)

LOL.

Not quite a TLA, but one of my favourites is GIYF, since it's a great acronym, abreviation, acronym* to respond with if someone asks what your abreviation(s) means ..... assuming they have a sense of humour!

*Being Welsh, almost anything is pronounceable, it's just a question of having enough flem in your mouth, such as cwtch.