The capital letters that begin each syllable of a name are known as initials. If your entire name is Michael Dennis Stocks, for example, your initials will be M. D. S. Your full name may be used as an address, so you would also use the initialism MD to represent it. In mathematics and science, an abbreviation is used to save time and space in writing and communicating. In mathematics, for example, abc can stand for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Abbreviations are also used in scientific fields to save time and words when referring to many things which are very similar or defined by certain characteristics. For example, botanists often use the term plant to refer to both plants and flowers. An abbreviation guide is provided here: http://www.mathsisfun.com/abbreviations.html. In linguistics, an initialism (or infumation) is a short form of word used as a linguistic label. For example, "the Chicago style" refers to one of the standard ways of formatting papers in the field of English called "Chicago style". Another common initialism is "NCSL", which stands for "New College Student's Library".