Okay, when I see acronyms I usually see stuff like NYOB, OMG, PM, stuff like that. I also see some of them with periods on them like N.A.S.A. Do you put the dots in them, or not?
Learn English – the periods in acronyms
acronymspunctuation
Related Solutions
For the punctuation marks for which you are asking the question (comma, colon, question mark, and exclamation point), they are written without any space before them, and with a space after them.
This is what you need: canned tuna fish, tomatoes, beans, olive oil, onions, parsley, and garlic.
I cannot believe it! You are accusing me of something you did!
What time is it? I am hungry.
The same is true for the semicolon and the period.
As for what's wrong with the wrong way, it is just not how punctuation marks are used nowadays. If you put a space before the exclamation point, I would think you are French, and that you are writing in English using the punctuation marks as you would in French, since in French you normally write a space before the exclamation point or the question mark.
I'm trying to give you a possible answer based on a 10 minute study on commonly used acronyms. There is no formal rule as such. But based on my personal observations, some acronyms can be read out as if they were actual words. This is usually for acronyms which doesn't sound funny when spoken. An acronym with a vowel, at some position, has a higher chance of being read out as a word. Let us take the acronyms mentioned in the comments (and a few more):
ASAP, SCUBA, LASER, RADAR, SWAT, NASA, FIFA, WHO.
It is pretty clear that the vowels are positioned in favorable places, so as to give an impression that it can be read out as words.
Now if the same acronyms had a vowel removed, (No copyright infringement intended, just to explain), and say they were :
SCBA, LSER, RDAR, SWT, NSA, FFA, WH.
it would sound super weird if we try to read these out as words. Ergo, we end up spelling it out.
Now let us look at a few acronyms with vowels, which are still not pronounced as if they were words:
FBI, ICC, CBI, CFO
In these acronyms, the vowels are not in favorable position so as to give it a 'word-like' structure.
Apart from all these, there are a few acronyms, which can be read out as words, but are not as they sound really odd
USA, DOD, CEO, MIA, MIT
These are some of the acronyms that can be read out as words, but aren't, maybe because it doesn't sound all that appealing.
Best Answer
This is something that has varied with time. I believe that it was once more common to include dots in initialisms (such as F.B.I.) or acronyms (such as U.N.I.C.E.F.), but I think you'll have a harder time finding contemporary news articles with acronyms or initialisms using dots like that nowadays – at least, it was easier for me to find articles with letters in all caps (e.g., FBI, UNICEF).
For example, on a UNICEF website, a Wikipedia page, and in article found in The Atlantic, all usages of the acronym are spelled as UNICEF (no dots), and many other abbreviations can be found in a similar form on those same pages, such as CEO, IGO, IFRC, UN, and NASCAR. That said, the Wikipedia page is a little inconsistent in this regard with respect to the abbreviation FC (football club): Sydney FC is listed with no dots, while Olympiacos F.C. (from Greece) and Rangers F.C. (from Scotland) are listed with the periods included.
The Grammar Girl blogger says this (emphasis added):
In the past couple decades, contemporary typesetters seem to be favoring "cleaner" conventions. One common exception seems to be U.S., but that may be in part because of its similarity with the word us; consider these two sentences:
The first two are easy enough to figure out, but some might argue that the third one could be confused with the second.
A different blog post from the Grammar Girl says this:
Heavens to St Peter! This just goes to show how muddled conventions like these can be.