Abbreviation, initialism, and acronym are frequently used interchangeably, but the terms are not identical in meaning and function.
If you abbreviate something, you shorten it. We see this most often in addresses: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue becomes 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Your old basketball coach, who was an admiral in the Navy, is Adm. Lippert. You probably abbreviate Latin terms every day, with et cetera used as etc. Abbreviation can refer to any shortened form, so initialisms and acronyms are also abbreviations.
Where it can get hairy is in distinguishing initialisms from acronyms, but this is because most people were never taught the difference. When you use a letter from each word of a lengthy organization or term (Young Men's Christian Association, chief executive officer) and actually pronounce each as a separate letter (YMCA, CEO), you have an initialism. An acronym is the word resulting from combining the letters of the abbreviation: NASA. Sometimes, these acronyms become so commonly accepted that they are recognized as words, e.g. scuba.
Stephanie McMillan's cartoon displays "The Initialism Of Wretchedness." (And don't call it an acronym!)
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