> Saying we shouldn’t have more specific words because many people don’t know their meaning doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I didn't say it was because peop

> Saying we shouldn’t have more specific words because many people don’t know their meaning doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I didn't say it was because people didn't know their meaning; I said it was because as far as most people are concerned, they're the same thing. I know what "initialism" means, but I choose not to use it, because as far as I'm concerned "NASA" and "FBI" are fundamentally the same thing. It's a waste of brain cells to figure out when to say "acronym" vs "initialism". As an example where I think such a distinction is important, I do consistently write "MiB" when I'm talking about 2^20 bits. I only saw it the first time maybe 10 years ago, but it immediately seemed to be to be both practical and useful to make that distinction. On the other hand, I never correct or ask clarification of people who use "MB", unless the difference becomes important. (Nor do I say "mebibyte", which is the proposed pronunciation of "MiB", because it's impossible to pronounce fluently.)