Jonkenator's Linkblog

I admit I didn't know an initialism was a kind of acronym.

But there are other examples of acronyms that use two letters to represnt one word. AWOL stands for Absent WithOut Leave. Same concept. By your strict logic it should be AWL. You could counter by pointing out that 'without' is a compound word, thus making it a false equivalence, but who cares? The mountainbiking community has been using MTB without issue. Like, what are the consequences of using MTB instead of MB?

Your comments come off as condescending and unnecessary. If you had just pointed out how curious it was that MTB doesn't follow the traditional convention that would fine. But you decided to call into question the intelligence of those who created the acronym when it really isn't a big deal. That's the only reason I felt it was necessary to comment. Not because I thought you were wrong, but because I thought you were being unnecessarily judgemental.

Edit: two more examples of acronyms with more letters than words they represent (RADAR - Radio Detection And Ranging, SONAR - Sound Navigation And Ranging)