I’ve often wondered what grammatical and syntactical rules exist in regards to the pronunciation of acronyms.
For instance, the National Organization for Women is pronounced “now,” not “en-oh-dubya.”
On the other hand, the Department Of Defense is pronounced “de-oh-de,” not “dod.”
Linguists out there, any explanations? Can others think of inconsistent pronunciation rules for acronyms?
I’m not delving too deep into the linguistics section of my brain, 'coz I should be working right now. However, it’s my guess that pronouncing the “word” spelled by an acronym depends on the following factors:
Is it pronounceable?
Does it make a real word or understandable sound?
Is the word or sound complementary to the organization using the acronym?
NOW is used for the National Organization for Women because it meets all three tests – it’s a pronounceable word that suggests progress.
CREEP (the Committee for the Re-Election of the President) back in Nixon’s time was only used by his detractors, for obvious reasons.
DOD meets test 1, and maybe 2. However, since there are so many acronyms in government that have DO or OD in them, you’ll be understood better if you pronounce the letters.
SNAFU and FUBAR – do I even have to mention these?
However, something like OPFOR (not really an acronym, but a contraction of Opposing Force) is used instead of OF because it combines ease of use with clarity of what you’re talking about.
Anybody else?
–Da Cap’n
“Playin’ solitaire 'til dawn
With a deck of fifty-one.”
When I worked for a defense contractor, we said DOD as dee-oh-dee. We also had as customers the Dept. of Commerce and the Dept of Transportation. We also said these spelled out.
The last one’s web site would be confusing to say as a word: dubya-dubya-dubya-dot-dot-dot-guv. 
What would Brian Boitano do / If he was here right now /
He’d make a plan and he’d follow through / That’s what Brian Boitano would do.
There aren’t any “rules.” Acronyms are pronouced because people decide to pronouce them one way or another.
Usually if it can conveniently be pronounced as a word, it turns into the word (especially if there’s already an existing word, like NOW). But there are exceptions.
“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
Another question is, which pronunciation? FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the governing body for what USAns call soccer. Is it Fee fah, or Fie fah, if it is not Eff Eye Eff Aay? The consensus seems to be FEE fuh.
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How about COBRA (pronounced “cobra”) for the Comprehensive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
but
ADA (pronounced “aye-dee-aye”) and ADEA (“aye-dee-e-aye”) for the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Doesn’t exactly answer the question, but here’s a little background:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/?date=19980825
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
Best of both worlds
IDOT
Illinois Dept of Trans
Pronounced
Eye-DOT
Computer-related acronyms made my ignorance laughably obvious for awhile. My sister was ROTFLHAO whenever she heard me pronounce the acronym for “web address” as “Earl” instead of U-R-L.
But how about GUI? The Cap’n’s guidelines don’t seem to fit that one. .
I always thought it did, because GUI’s are kind of gooey.
There is a big exception for technobabble:
SCSI = “Scuzzy”
CLLI = “Silly”
DLCI = “Delsie”
FDDI = “Fiddy”
These sounded-out acronyms make hi-tech conversations a little CLLI sounding sometimes.
Recent polls revealed that some people have never been polled, until recently.
That’s because “N-O Dubya” was trademarked by the Democratic National Committee!
I have a feeling this is a losing battle, but…an acronym is a pronounceable word. Cap’n Crude is correct. I’ve noticed that a lot (most?) posters use the word acronym to mean any abbreviation of two or more words – wrong. DOD is an acronym - we don’t say it like a word, but it can be pronounced (dahd?) The technobabble “words” are abbreviations. Even though the computer techies may pronounce them as opus notes, they are not acronyms. KISS (keep it simple stupid) is an acronym. WAG (wild ass guess) is an acronym.
It’s also very similar to “IDIOT,” which is incredibly appropriate.
“The world is everything that is the case.” --Ludwig Wittgenstein
Clarification Needed:
I thought abbreviations were truncated words like abbr., etc., inc., oz. and so forth. The dot indicates the word has been abbreviated (shortened) which may help you mentally put the word back together in case you didn’t know what oz. was an abbreviation for.
Acronyms are things that may or may nor be pronouncable but are formed by taking the first letter of each word as in all of the prior examples. the absence of the dot lets us know that it’s an acronym and again we have a mental crutch to help us put the phrase together in case we didn’t know what DOD stood for.
There is another group called suspensions like tbsp (tablespoon) which aren’t truncated or acronyms but have letters missing from the middle of the word. -Or have these been regrouped together with abbreviations now?
No?
BTW, somebody explain “lbs” to me- there’s no L or B in pounds!
Recent polls revealed that some people have never been polled, until recently.
Oooo! Oooo! Mista’ Kotta!
Our pound comes from the Latin/Roman libra, which was about the same weight as our pounds.
The better question is where “pound” came from. And, I’ll tell you. 
Middle English, from Old English pund, West Germanic **punda-*, and Latin (lìbra) pondo, (a pound) by weight. Latin used libra and pondo fairly interchangeably, with libra being more like “a measure” and pondo “an amount,” generically.
-andros-
And FWIW, as a gummint contractor I work for the Dept. of Energy, DOE.
Usually pronounced, “D’OH!”
heh… Andros beat me to it. Yep, Dept. 'O Energy = D’OH! Kinda apropos if you think about it.
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…