 A popular method of forming words in present-day English involves the initial letters of an expression to form abbreviations. For example, if the initial letters of an expression can be combined to form a pronounceable word with well-formed syllables, the result is referred to as acronym. Such an acronym is radar. Here the initial letters r, a from the first term and the initial letters from the remaining words are combined and build two well-formed syllables, radar. Sometimes abbreviations are created using the initial letters of words but result in non-permissible syllables. In such cases we just pronounce the initial letters, dj. These types of abbreviation are referred to as initialisms. A well-known example is the initialism ibm, where the first three letters of the expression International Business Machines do not constitute a well-formed syllable. Thus we take the initial letters of each component word and pronounce them as the initialism ibm. In both cases we have a purely orthographical operation which is permissible as long as the resulting abbreviations are meaningful and in the case of acronyms, pronounceable.