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Rime pronounces most common abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms correctly out of the box. The patterns below show how to format input when you want to control pronunciation explicitly.
For a tour of text normalization across all categories, see Text normalization. For specific patterns Rime doesn’t expand cleanly, see Pre-normalizing text.

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Abbreviations

Rime correctly pronounces most common abbreviations automatically. Some abbreviations resolve from context. For example, St. reads as “saint” in St. John but “street” in Main St. See Addresses for street and state abbreviations in address context.

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Acronyms and initialisms

Acronyms are pronounced as a single word. For example, NASA reads as “Nasa”. Initialisms are pronounced as a series of letters, so DNA reads as “D N A”. By default, Rime pronounces a series of capital letters as an acronym. Common initialisms such as DNA, ID, USA, FBI, and CIA are pronounced as a series of letters automatically. To force initialism pronunciation reliably, use lowercase letters with a period and space after each:
You can also specify a custom pronunciation for any acronym or initialism using Rime’s custom pronunciations feature.

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Known gaps

Context-dependent abbreviations like Dr., Mr., and St. rely on surrounding words to resolve and may not always read the way you expect. For workarounds and a drop-in prompt template, see Pre-normalizing text.