Word Formation: Compounding, Clipping, and Blending

written by: Heather Marie Kosur edited by: Tricia Goss updated: 11/8/2012
The word formation processes of compounding, clipping, and blending are important concepts when creating words.
Also included for download are vocabulary lists of common English compounds, clipped words, and blends.
Compounding
Compounding is the word formation process in which two or more lexemes combine into a single new word.
Compound words may be written as one word or as two words joined with a hyphen. For example:
noun-noun compound: note + book notebook red coat(angkatan bersenjata)
laptop
arm chair
adjective-noun compound: blue + berry blueberry
verb-noun compound: work + room workroom
noun-verb compound: breast + feed breastfeed
verb-verb compound: stir + fry stir-fry
adjective-verb compound: high + light highlight
verb-preposition compound: break + up breakup
preposition-verb compound: out + run outrun
adjective-adjective compound: bitter + sweet bittersweet
preposition-preposition compound: in + to into
Compounds may be compositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word is determined by combining the
meanings of the parts, or noncompositional, meaning that the meaning of the new word cannot be determined by
combining the meanings of the parts. For example, a blueberry is a berry that is blue. However, a breakup is not a
relationship that was severed into pieces in an upward direction.
Free Games For Android
mobogenie.com/download
Download Them With Our PC Suite. None will charges a fee.
Ads by Google
Compound nouns should not be confused with nouns modified by adjectives, verbs, and other nouns. For example, the
adjective black of the noun phrase black bird is different from the adjective black of the compound noun blackbird in
that black of black bird functions as a noun phrase modifier while the black of blackbird is an inseparable part of the
noun: a black bird also refers to any bird that is black in color while a blackbird is a specific type of bird.
Clipping
Clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced or shortened without changing the meaning of the
word. Clipping differs from back-formation in that the new word retains the meaning of the original word. For
example:
advertisement ad
alligator gator
examination exam
gasoline gas
gymnasium gym
influenza flu
laboratory lab
mathematics math
memorandum memo
photograph photo
public house pub
raccoon coon
reputation rep
situation comedy sitcom
telephone phone
The four types of clipping are back clipping, fore-clipping, middle clipping, and complex clipping. Back clipping is
removing the end of a word as in gas from gasoline. Fore-clipping is removing the beginning of a word as
in gator fromalligator. Middle clipping is retaining only the middle of a word as in flu from influenza. Complex
clipping is removing multiple parts from multiple words as in sitcom from situation comedy.
Blending,SAME AS LIKE COMPOUNDING.BUT PART OF THE WORD Deleted,usually 1st
partof1stword+end of 2nd word
Blending is the word formation process in which parts of two or more words combine to create a new word whose
meaning is often a combination of the original words. For example:
advertisement + entertainment advertainment
biographical + picture biopic
breakfast + lunch brunch
chuckle + snort chortle
cybernetic + organism cyborg
guess + estimate guesstimate
hazardous + material hazmat
motor + hotel motel motor bergerak
prim + sissy prissy
simultaneous + broadcast simulcast
smoke + fog smog
Spanish + English Spanglish
spoon + fork spork
telephone + marathon telethon
web + seminar webinar
agitprop(agitation+propaganda)
camcorder(camera+recorder)
docudrama(documentary+drama)
infotainment(information+ENTERTAINMENT)
wireless+fidelity=wi-fy
Blended words are also referred to as portmanteaus.
Printable Downloads
For more complete lists of English words formed through compounding, clipping, and blending, please download the
following free printable vocabulary lists:
Compound Noun List: English Compound Nouns
List of English Clipped Words
List of English Blend Words
WORD FORMATION: CREATING NEW WORDS IN ENGLISH
The articles in this series define and exemplify the most common word formation processes, or the creation
of new words, in English including derivation, back-formation, conversion, compounding, clipping, blending,
abbreviations, acronyms, eponyms, coinages, nonce words, borrowing, and calquing.
1. Word Formation: Derivation and Back-Formation
2. Word Formation: Conversion
3. Word Formation: Compounding, Clipping, and Blending
4. Word Formation: Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Eponyms
5. Word Formation: Coinages, Nonce Words, Borrowing, and Calquing



BORROWING


Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language
(the source language). A loanword can also be called a borrowing. The abstract
noun borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language
into their native language. "Loan" and "borrowing" are of course metaphors, because there is
no literal lending process. There is no transfer from one language to another, and no
"returning" words to the source language. The words simply come to be used by a speech
community that speaks a different language from the one these words originated in.
Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities.
Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but
often there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this case
the source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that
makes the objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language
community. For example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted
numerous loanwords from Latin as they adopted new products via trade with the Romans.
Few Germanic words, on the other hand, passed into Latin.
The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events (i.e. instances of
use of the new word). Generally, some speakers of the borrowing language know the source
language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant word. They (often consciously)
adopt the new word when speaking the borrowing language, because it most exactly fits the
idea they are trying to express. If they are bilingual in the source language, which is often the
case, they might pronounce the words the same or similar to the way they are pronounced in
the source language. For example, English speakers adopted the word garage from French,
at first with a pronunciation nearer to the French pronunciation than is now usually found.
Presumably the very first speakers who used the word in English knew at least some French
and heard the word used by French speakers, in a French-speaking context.
Those who first use the new word might use it at first only with speakers of the source
language who know the word, but at some point they come to use the word with those to
whom the word was not previously known. To these speakers the word may sound 'foreign'.
At this stage, when most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is from
another language, the word can be called a foreign word. There are many foreign words and
phrases used in English such as bon vivant (French), mutatis mutandis (Latin),
and Fahrvergnuegen (German).
However, in time more speakers can become familiar with a new foreign word or expression.
The community of users of this word can grow to the point where even people who know
little or nothing of the source language understand, and even use, the novel word themselves.
The new word becomes conventionalized: part of the conventional ways of speaking in the
borrowing language. At this point we call it a borrowing or loanword.
(It should be noted that not all foreign words do become loanwords; if they fall out of use
before they become widespread, they do not reach the loanword stage.)
Conventionalization is a gradual process in which a word progressively permeates a larger
and larger speech community, becoming part of ever more people's linguistic repetoire. As
part of its becoming more familiar to more people, a newly borrowed word gradually adopts
sound and other characteristics of the borrowing language as speakers who do not know the
source language accommodate it to their own linguistic systems. In time, people in the
borrowing community do not perceive the word as a loanword at all. Generally, the longer a
borrowed word has been in the language, and the more frequently it is used, the more it
resembles the native words of the language.
English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words from a particular
language were borrowed. These periods coincide with times of major cultural contact
between English speakers and those speaking other languages. The waves of borrowing
during periods of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited, and can
overlap. For example, the Norse influence on English began already in the 8th century A.D.
and continued strongly well after the Norman Conquest brought a large influx of Norman
French to the language.
It is part of the cultural history of English speakers that they have always adopted loanwords
from the languages of whatever cultures they have come in contact with. There have been few
periods when borrowing became unfashionable, and there has never been a national
academy in Britain, the U.S., or other English-speaking countries to attempt to restrict new
loanwords, as there has been in many continental European countries.
The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that came into English in different
periods and from different languages.
I. Germanic period
Latin
The forms given in this section are the Old English ones. The original Latin source word is
given in parentheses where significantly different. Some Latin words were themselves
originally borrowed from Greek. It can be deduced that these borrowings date from the time
before the Angles and Saxons left the continent for England, because of very similar forms
found in the other old Germanic languages (Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.). The source
words are generally attested in Latin texts, in the large body of Latin writings that were
preserved through the ages.
ancor 'anchor'
butere 'butter' (L < Gr. butyros)
cealc 'chalk'
ceas 'cheese' (caseum)
cetel 'kettle'
cycene 'kitchen'
cirice 'church' (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)
disc 'dish' (discus)
Mil 'mile' (milia [passuum] 'a thousand paces')
piper 'pepper'
pund 'pound' (pondo 'a weight')
sacc 'sack' (saccus)
sicol 'sickle'
straet 'street' ([via] strata 'straight way' or stone-paved road)
weall 'wall' (vallum)
Win 'wine' (vinum < Gr. oinos)
II. Old English Period (600-1100)
Latin
apostol 'apostle' (apostolus < Gr. apostolos)
casere 'caesar, emperor'
ceaster 'city' (castra 'camp')
cest 'chest' (cista 'box')
circul 'circle'
cometa 'comet' (cometa < Greek)
maegester 'master' (magister)
martir 'martyr'
paper 'paper' (papyrus, from Gr.)
tigle 'tile' (tegula)
Celtic
brocc 'badger'
cumb 'combe, valley'
(few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river names: London, Carlisle,
Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon...)
III. Middle English Period (1100-1500)
Scandinavian
Most of these first appeared in the written language in Middle English; but many were no
doubt borrowed earlier, during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).
anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow, gear, get, give, hale, hit,
husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low, lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch, score,
scowl, scrape, scrub, seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sly, take, they, them, their, thrall,
thrust, ugly, want, window, wing
Place name suffixes: -by, -thorpe, -gate
French
Law and governmentattorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime,
defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble, parliament,
plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict
Churchabbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest, religion,
sacrament, saint, sermon
Nobilitybaron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess;
prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal (contrast native words: king,
queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly, queenly)
Militaryarmy, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal, defense,enemy,marine,
navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer
Cookingbeef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast, salmon,
stew, veal
Culture and luxury goodsart, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur,
jewel, oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture
Otheradventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor, feign,
fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror, pilgrimage, proud, question,
regard, special
Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -
ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre- .
Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken
straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no
special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin
IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)
The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of
a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars
well versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other languages, as words
from European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the first words come in
from the earliest period of colonial expansion.
Latin
agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule, compensate, dexterity, discus, disc/disk,
excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual, insane, janitor, meditate, notorious,
orbit, peninsula, physician, superintendent, ultimate, vindicate
Greek (many of these via Latin)
anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic, data, ectasy,
history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia, skeleton, tonic, tragedy
Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize
Arabic
via Spanishalcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral
via other Romance languagesamber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee
V. Modern English (1650-present)
Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and American
immigration.
Words from European languages
French
French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized
vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical
borrowings).
High cultureballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic,
cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet, sachet, salon, saloon,
sang froid, savoir faire
War and Militarybastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade,
rebuff, bayonet
Otherbigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock
French Canadianchowder
Louisiana French (Cajun)jambalaya
Spanish
armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado, cannibal, canyon,
coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar, marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang,
ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante
Italian
alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco, fugue, gazette (via
French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni, madrigal, motto, piano, opera,
pantaloons, prima donna, regatta, sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio,
tempo, torso, umbrella, viola, violin
from Italian American immigrantscappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafioso, pasta,
pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini
Dutch, Flemish
Shipping, naval termsavast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock,
freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop, smuggle, splice,
tackle, yawl, yacht
Cloth industrybale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap (of cloth),
selvage, spool, stripe
Arteasel, etching, landscape, sketch
Warbeleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught
Food and drinkbooze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin,
hops, stockfish, waffle
Otherbugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical term),
uproar
German
bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst, loafer, noodle,
poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle, pumpernickel, sauerkraut, schnitzel, zwieback,
(beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl
20th century German loanwordsblitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat, delicatessen,
hamburger, frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss,
wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple) strudel
Yiddish (most are 20th century borrowings)
bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox, pastrami
(orig. from Romanian), schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel, schlimazel, gefilte fish, goy,
klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck, schnook,
Scandinavian
fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom, smorgasbord
Russian
apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon, perestroika, vodka
Words from other parts of the world
Sanskrit
avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga
Hindi
bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree, juggernaut, jungle,
loot, maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink), shampoo, thug, kedgeree,
jamboree
Dravidian
curry, mango, teak, pariah
Persian (Farsi)
check, checkmate, chess
Arabic
bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, lute, minaret, mosque, myrrh,
salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan
African languages
banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie, chigger, goober, gorilla, gumbo, jazz,
jitterbug, jitters, juke(box), voodoo, yam, zebra, zombie
American Indian languages
avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk, chocolate, chili, hammock, hominy,
hurricane, maize, moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum, potato, skunk, squaw,
succotash, squash, tamale (via Spanish), teepee, terrapin, tobacco, toboggan,
tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck
(plus thousands of place names, including Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatchewan and the
names of more than half the
states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois)
Chinese
chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, ketchup, tea, ginseng, kowtow, litchee
Japanese
geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, soy, sumo, sushi,
tsunami
Pacific Islands
bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks
Australia
boomerang, budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo (and many more in Australian
English)
Close this window



Full Definition of ACRONYM
: a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the
successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed
from initial letters : initialism
ac ro nym ic adjective
ac ro nym i cal ly adverb
See acronym defined for English-language learners
See acronym defined for kids
Examples of ACRONYM
1. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is known by the acronym NATO.
Origin of ACRONYM
acr- + -onym
First Known Use: 1943
Other Grammar and Linguistics Terms
ablaut, allusion, anacoluthon, diacritic, gerund, idiom, infinitive, metaphor, semiotics, simile
Rhymes with ACRONYM
anonym, antonym, cryptonym, eponym, homonym, metonym, paronym, pseudonym,
retronym, seraphim, synonym, tautonym, toponym, underbrim
Learn More About ACRONYM
Spanish Central Translation: "acronym" in Spanish
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about "acronym"
Browse
Next Word in the Dictionary: acropetal
Previous Word in the Dictionary: acronarcotic (noun)
All Words Near: acronym
Seen & Heard
What made you want to look up acronym? Please tell us where you read or heard it
(including the quote, if possible).

Acronym
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the <acronym> HTML tag, see HTML element#acronym.
For the use of acronyms on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Acronyms.
An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word.
These components may be individual letters (as in laser) or parts of words (as in Benelux and
Ameslan). There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of various names for
such abbreviations (see nomenclature) nor on written usage (see orthographic styling). In
English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they
became much more common in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation
process, and they are viewed as a subtype of blending.
Contents
1 Nomenclature
2 Comparing a few examples of each type
3 Historical and current use
o 3.1 Early examples in English
o 3.2 Current use
3.2.1 Aids to learning the expansion without leaving a document
3.2.2 Jargon
3.2.3 As mnemonics
3.2.4 Acronyms as legendary etymology
4 Orthographic styling
o 4.1 Punctuation
4.1.1 Showing the ellipsis of letters
4.1.1.1 Ellipsis-is-understood style
4.1.1.2 Pronunciation-dependent style
4.1.1.3 Other conventions
4.1.2 Representing plurals and possessives
o 4.2 Case
4.2.1 All-caps style
4.2.1.1 Small-caps variant
4.2.1.2 Mixed-case variant
4.2.2 Pronunciation-dependent style
o 4.3 Numerals and constituent words
o 4.4 Casing of expansions
5 Changes to (or word play on) the expanded meaning
o 5.1 Pseudo-acronyms
o 5.2 Redundant acronyms and RAS syndrome
o 5.3 Simple redefining
o 5.4 Backronyms
o 5.5 Contrived acronyms
o 5.6 Macronyms/nested acronyms
5.6.1 Recursive acronyms
6 Non-English language
o 6.1 Asian languages
6.1.1 Chinese
6.1.2 Japanese
6.1.3 Indonesian
o 6.2 German
o 6.3 Russian
o 6.4 Hebrew
o 6.5 Swahili
o 6.6 Declension
o 6.7 Lenition
7 Extremes
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
Nomenclature
The term acronym is the name for a word from the first letters of each word in a series of
words (such as sonar, created from SOund Navigation And Ranging).
[1]
Attestations for
"Akronym" in German are known from 1921, and for "acronym" in English from 1940.
[2]

While an abbreviation is the shortened form of any initial, syllable or parts of a phrase or
words, an initialism (or less commonly, alphabetism) refers to an abbreviation formed from,
and used simply as, a string of initials.
[3]
Although the term acronym is widely used to refer
to any abbreviation formed from initial letters,
[4]
some dictionaries define acronym to mean
"a word" in its original sense,
[5][6][7]
while some others include additional senses attributing to
acronym the same meaning as that of initialism.
[8][9][10][11]
The distinction, when made, hinges
on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a string of letters. In such cases,
examples found in dictionaries include NATO /neto/, scuba /skub/, and radar /redr/
for acronyms, and FBI /fbia/ and HTML /ettiml/ for initialisms.
[5][9][12]
In the rest
of this article, this distinction is not made.
There is no agreement on what to call abbreviations whose pronunciation involves the
combination of letter names and words, such as JPEG /dep/ and MS-DOS /msds/.
There is also some disagreement as to what to call abbreviations that some speakers
pronounce as letters and others pronounce as a word. For example, the terms URL and IRA
can be pronounced as individual letters: /jurl/ and /are/, respectively; or as a single
word: /rl/ and /ar/, respectively. Such constructions, howeverregardless of how they
are pronouncedif formed from initials, may be identified as initialisms.
The spelled-out form of an acronym or initialism (that is, what it stands for) is called its
expansion.
Comparing a few examples of each type
Pronounced as a word, containing only initial letters
o NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
o Scuba: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
o Laser: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
Pronounced as a word, containing non-initial letters
o Amphetamine: alpha-methyl-phenethylamine
o Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei (secret state police)
o Interpol: International Criminal Police Organization
o Nabisco: National Biscuit Company
Pronounced as a word, containing a mixture of initial and non-initial letters
o AIDS: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
o Necco: New England Confectionery Company
o Radar: radio detection and ranging
Pronounced as a word or as a string of letters, depending on speaker or context
o FAQ: ([fk] or ef-a-cue) frequently asked question
o IRA: When used for Individual Retirement Account, can be pronounced as letters (i-
ar-a) or as a word *ar].
o SAT(s): ([st] or ess-a-tee) (previously) Scholastic Achievement (or Aptitude) Test(s)
(US) or Standard Assessment Test(s) (UK), now claimed not to stand for anything.
[13]

o SQL: (*sikwl] or ess-cue-el) Structured Query Language.
Pronounced as a combination of spelling out and a word
o CD-ROM: (cee-dee-[rm]) Compact Disc read-only memory
o IUPAC: (i-u-[pk]) International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
o JPEG: (jay-[p]) Joint Photographic Experts Group
o SFMOMA: (ess-ef-[mom]) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Pronounced only as a string of letters
o BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
o OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer
o USA: The United States of America
Pronounced as a string of letters, but with a shortcut
o AAA:
(triple A) American Automobile Association; abdominal aortic aneurysm;
anti-aircraft artillery; Asistencia, Asesora y Administracin
(three As) Amateur Athletic Association
o IEEE: (I triple E) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
o NAACP: (N double A C P) National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People
o NCAA: (N C double A or N C two A or N C A A) National Collegiate Athletic Association
Shortcut incorporated into name
o 3M: (three M) originally Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
o E3: (E three) Electronic Entertainment Exposition
o W3C: (W three C) World Wide Web Consortium
o C4ISTAR: (C four I star) Command, Control, Communications, Computers,
Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance
[14]

Multi-layered acronyms
o NAC Breda: (Dutch football club) NOAD ADVENDO Combinatie ("NOAD ADVENDO
Combination"), formed by the 1912 merger of two clubs, NOAD (Nooit Opgeven
Altijd Doorgaan "Never give up, always persevere") and ADVENDO (Aangenaam
Door Vermaak En Nuttig Door Ontspanning "Pleasant by entertainment and useful
by relaxation") from Breda
[15][16]

o GAIM (former name of Pidgin): GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger
o GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program
o VHDL: VHSIC hardware description language, where VHSIC stands for very-high-
speed integrated circuit.
Recursive acronyms, in which the abbreviation refers to itself
o GNU: GNU's not Unix!
o WINE: WINE Is Not an Emulator (originally, WINdows Emulator)
o PHP: PHP hypertext pre-processor (formerly personal home page)
o These may go through multiple layers before the self-reference is found:
HURD: HIRD of Unix-replacing daemons, where "HIRD" stands for "HURD of
interfaces representing depth"
Pseudo-acronyms,
[citation needed][original research?]
which consist of a sequence of characters that,
when pronounced as intended, invoke other, longer words with less typing (see also Internet
slang)
o CQ: cee-cue for "seek you", a code used by radio operators
o IOU: i-o-u for "I owe you" (a true acronym would be IOY)
o K9: kay-nine for "canine", used to designate police units utilizing dogs
o Q8: cue-eight for "Kuwait"
Acronyms whose last abbreviated word is often redundantly included anyway
o ATM machine: Automated Teller Machine machine
o HIV virus: Human Immunodeficiency Virus virus
o LCD display: Liquid Crystal Display display
o PIN number: Personal Identification Number number
Historical and current use
Acronymy, like retronymy, is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for
which there was little to no naming, conscious attention, or systematic analysis until
relatively recent times. Like retronymy, it became much more common in the 20th century
than it had formerly been.
Ancient examples of acronymy (regardless of whether there was metalanguage at the time to
describe it) include the following:
Acronyms were used in Rome before the Christian era. For example, the official name for
the Roman Empire, and the Republic before it, was abbreviated as SPQR (Senatus
Populusque Romanus). Inscriptions dating from antiquity, both on stone and on coins, use a
lot of abbreviations and acronyms to save room and work. For example, Roman first names,
of which there was only a small set, were almost always abbreviated. Common terms were
abbreviated too, such as writing just "F" for "filius", meaning "son of", a very common part
of memorial inscriptions mentioning people. Grammatical markers were abbreviated or left
out entirely if they could be inferred from the rest of the text.
So called Nomina Sacra were used in many Greek biblical manuscripts. The common words
"God" (), "Jesus" (), "Christ" (), and some others, would be abbreviated
by their first and last letters, marked with an overline. This was just one of many kinds of
conventional scribal abbreviation, used to reduce the time-consuming workload of the
scribe and save on valuable writing materials. The same convention is still commonly used in
the inscriptions on religious icons and the stamps used to mark the eucharistic bread in
eastern churches.
The early Christians in Rome, most of whom were Greek rather than Latin speakers, used the
image of a fish as a symbol for Jesus in part because of an acronymfish in Greek is
(ichthys), which was said to stand for (Iesous CHristos
THeou hUios Soter: Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior). Evidence of this interpretation dates
from the 2nd and 3rd centuries and is preserved in the catacombs of Rome. And for
centuries, the Church has used the inscription INRI over the crucifix, which stands for the
Latin Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum ("Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews").
The Hebrew language has a long history of formation of acronyms pronounced as words,
stretching back many centuries. The Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament") is known as "Tanakh",
an acronym composed from the Hebrew initial letters of its three major sections: Torah (five
books of Moses), Nevi'im (prophets), and K'tuvim (writings). Many rabbinical figures from
the Middle Ages onward are referred to in rabbinical literature by their pronounced
acronyms, such as Rambam (aka Maimonides, from the initial letters of his full Hebrew name
(Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) and Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzkhaki).
During the mid- to late-19th century, an acronym-disseminating trend spread through the
American and European business communities: abbreviating corporation names in places
where space was limited for writingsuch as on the sides of railroad cars (e.g., Richmond,
Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad RF&P); on the sides of barrels and crates; and on
ticker tape and in the small-print newspaper stock listings that got their data from it (e.g.,
American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T). Some well-known commercial
examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include Nabisco (National Biscuit
Company),
[17]
Esso (from S.O., from Standard Oil), and Sunoco (Sun Oil Company).
Another driver for the adoption of acronyms was modern warfare with its many highly
technical terms. While there is no recorded use of military acronyms in documents dating
from the American Civil War (acronyms such as ANV for "Army of Northern Virginia" post-
date the war itself), they had become somewhat common in World War I and were very much
a part even of the vernacular language of the soldiers during World War II,
[18]
who
themselves were referred to as G.I.s.
The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across the whole range of registers is a relatively
new linguistic phenomenon in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-
20th century. As literacy rates rose, and as advances in science and technology brought with
them a constant stream of new (and sometimes more complex) terms and concepts, the
practice of abbreviating terms became increasingly convenient. The Oxford English
Dictionary (OED) records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899, but
it did not come into general use until 1965, well after acronym had become common.
By 1943, the term acronym had been used in English to recognize abbreviations (and
contractions of phrases) that were pronounced as words.
[17]
(It was formed from the Greek
words , akros, "topmost, extreme" and , onoma, "name.") For example, the army
offense of being absent without official leave was abbreviated to "A.W.O.L." in reports, but
when pronounced as a word ('awol'), it became an acronym.
[19]
While initial letters are
commonly used to form an acronym, the original definition was a word made from the initial
letters or syllables of other words,
[20]
for example UNIVAC from UNIVersal Automatic
Computer.
[21]

In English, acronyms pronounced as words may be a 20th-century phenomenon. Linguist
David Wilton in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends claims that "forming
words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth- (and now twenty-first-) century phenomenon.
There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and
it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is colinderies or colinda, an acronym
for the Colonial and Indian Exposition held in London in that year."
[22][23]
However, although
acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the 20th
century (as Wilton points out), the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly
understood (and evidently not novel) in a Poe story of the 1830s, "How to Write a Blackwood
Article", which includes the contrived acronym P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H.
Early examples in English
The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and predates
modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are:
o A.M. (from Latin ante meridiem, "before noon") and P.M. (from Latin post meridiem,
"after noon")
o A.D. (from Latin Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord") (whose complement in
English, B.C. [Before Christ], is English-sourced)
O.K., a term of disputed origin, dating back at least to the early 19th century, now used
around the world
The etymology of the word alphabet itself comes to Middle English from the Late Latin
Alphabetum, which in turn derives from the Ancient Greek Alphabetos, from alpha and beta,
the first two letters of the Greek alphabet.
[24]
In colloquial terms, learning the alphabet is
called learning one's ABCs. Since the letter names stand for themselves in these examples
rather than being the initials of other words, these are not really acronyms.
Current use
Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently
referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms;
some well-known examples from the United States are among the "alphabet agencies" (also
jokingly referred to as "alphabet soup") created by Franklin D. Roosevelt under the New
Deal. Business and industry also are prolific coiners of acronyms. The rapid advance of
science and technology in recent centuries seems to be an underlying force driving the usage,
as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more
manageable names. One representative example, from the U.S. Navy, is COMCRUDESPAC,
which stands for commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific; it's also seen as "ComCruDesPac".
"YABA-compatible" (where YABA stands for "yet another bloody acronym") is used to
mean that a term's acronym can be pronounced but is not an offensive word (e.g., "When
choosing a new name, be sure it is "YABA-compatible").
[25]

The use of acronyms has been further popularized with the emergence of Short Message
Systems (SMS). To fit messages into the 160-character limit of SMS, acronyms such as "GF"
(girl friend), "LOL" (laughing out loud), and "DL" (download or down low) have been
popularized into the mainstream.
[26]
Although prescriptivist disdain for such neologism is
fashionable, and can be useful when the goal is protecting message receivers from
crypticness, it is scientifically groundless when couched as preserving the "purity" or
"legitimacy" of language; this neologism is merely the latest instance of a perennial linguistic
principlethe same one that in the 19th century prompted the aforementioned abbreviation
of corporation names in places where space for writing was limited (e.g., ticker tape,
newspaper column inches).
Aids to learning the expansion without leaving a document
The expansion is typically given at the first occurrence of the acronym within a given text,
for the benefit of those readers who do not know what it stands for. The capitalization of the
original term is independent of it being acronymized, being lowercase for a common noun
such as frequently asked questions (FAQ) but uppercase for a proper noun such as the United
Nations (UN) (as explained at Case > Casing of expansions).
In addition to expansion at first use, some publications also have a key listing all acronyms
used therein and what their expansions are. This is a convenience to readers for two reasons.
The first is that if they are not reading the entire publication sequentially (which is a common
mode of reading), then they may encounter an acronym without having seen its expansion.
Having a key at the start or end of the publication obviates skimming over the text searching
for an earlier use to find the expansion. (This is especially important in the print medium,
where no search utility is available.) The second reason for the key feature is its pedagogical
value in educational works such as textbooks. It gives students a way to review the meanings
of the acronyms introduced in a chapter after they have done the line-by-line reading, and
also a way to quiz themselves on the meanings (by covering up the expansion column and
recalling the expansions from memory, then checking their answers by uncovering.) In
addition, this feature enables readers possessing knowledge of the abbreviations not to have
to encounter expansions (redundant to such readers).
Expansion at first use and the abbreviation-key feature are aids to the reader that originated in
the print era, and they are equally useful in print and online. In addition, the online medium
offers yet more aids, such as tooltips, hyperlinks, and rapid search via search engine
technology.
Jargon
Acronyms often occur in jargon. An acronym may have different meanings in different areas
of industry, writing, and scholarship. The general reason for this is convenience and
succinctness for specialists, although it has led some to obfuscate the meaning either
intentionally, to deter those without such domain-specific knowledge, or unintentionally, by
creating an acronym that already existed.
The medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms as their
use has evolved from aiding communication to hindering it. This has become such a problem
that it is even evaluated at the level of medical academies such as the American Academy of
Dermatology.
[27]

As mnemonics
Acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices, for example in physics the colors of the
visible spectrum are ROY G. BIV (red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet). They are
also used as mental checklists, for example in aviation: GUMPS, which is Gas-
Undercarriage-Mixture-Propeller-Seatbelts. Other examples of mnemonic acronyms include
CAN SLIM, and PAVPANIC.
Acronyms as legendary etymology
See also: Backronym
It is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology, called a folk
etymology, for a word. Such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis
in historical linguistics, and are examples of language-related urban legends. For example,
cop is commonly cited as being derived, it is presumed, from "constable on patrol,"
[28]
and
posh from "port out, starboard home".
[29]
With some of these specious expansions, the
"belief" that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue-in-cheek among many
citers, as with "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" for golf, although many other (more
credulous) people have uncritically taken it for fact.
[29][30]
Taboo words in particular
commonly have such false etymologies: shit from "ship/store high in transit"
[22][31]
or "special
high-intensity training" and fuck from "for unlawful carnal knowledge", or "fornication under
consent/command of the king".
[31]

Orthographic styling
Punctuation
Showing the ellipsis of letters
In English, abbreviations have traditionally been written with a full stop/period/point in place
of the deleted part to show the ellipsis of letters, although the colon and apostrophe have also
had this role. In the case of most acronyms, each letter is an abbreviation of a separate word
and, in theory, should get its own termination mark. Such punctuation is diminishing with the
belief that the presence of all-capital letters is sufficient to indicate that the word is an
abbreviation.
Ellipsis-is-understood style
Some influential style guides, such as that of the BBC, no longer require punctuation to show
ellipsis; some even proscribe it. Larry Trask, American author of The Penguin Guide to
Punctuation, states categorically that, in British English, "this tiresome and unnecessary
practice is now obsolete",
[32]
though some other sources are not so absolute in their
pronouncements.
Pronunciation-dependent style
Nevertheless, some influential style guides, many of them American, still require periods in
certain instances. For example, The New York Times guide recommends following each
segment with a period when the letters are pronounced individually, as in K.G.B., but not
when pronounced as a word, as in NATO.
[33]
The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is
reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme.
Other conventions
When a multiple-letter abbreviation is formed from a single word, periods are in general not
used, although they may be common in informal usage. TV, for example, may stand for a
single word (television or transvestite, for instance), and is in general spelled without
punctuation (except in the plural). Although PS stands for the single word postscript (or the
Latin postscriptum), it is often spelled with periods (P.S.).
The slash ('/', a.k.a. virgule) is sometimes used to separate the letters in a two-letter acronym,
as in N/A (not applicable, not available), c/o (care of) and w/o (without).
Inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented according
to their letter count. For example, i18n abbreviates internationalization, a computer-science
term for adapting software for worldwide use. The 18 represents the 18 letters that come
between the first and the last in internationalization. Localization can be abbreviated l10n,
multilingualization m17n, and accessibility a11y. In addition to the use of a specific number
replacing that amount of letters, the more general "x" can be used to replace an unspecified
number of letters (e.g., Crxn for crystallization).
Representing plurals and possessives
Turabian
[34]
(Chicago) allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an
abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". The MLA
[35]

explicitly says, "do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation". The APA
specifically says,
[36][36]
"without an apostrophe".
The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with the addition of s (for example, Bs
come after As) was extended to some of the earliest acronyms, which tended to be written
with periods to indicate the omission of letters; some writers still pluralize acronyms in this
way.
However, it has become common among many writers to inflect acronyms as ordinary words,
using simple s, without an apostrophe, for the plural. In this case, compact discs becomes
CDs. The logic here is that the apostrophe should be restricted to possessives: for example,
the CD's label (the label of the compact disc).
[37]

Multiple options arise when acronyms are spelled with periods and are pluralized: for
example, whether compact discs may become C.D.'s, C.D.s, or CDs. Possessive plurals that
also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for
example, the C.D.s labels (the labels of the compact discs). This is yet another reason to use
apostrophes only for possessives and not for plurals. In some instances, however, an
apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter of an abbreviation is S, as in
SOS's (although abbreviations ending with S can also take -es, e.g. SOSes), or when
pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods.
[38][39]
(In The New York Times, the plural
possessive of G.I., which the newspaper prints with periods in reference to United States
Army soldiers, is G.I.'s, with no apostrophe after the s.)
A particularly rich source of options arises when the plural of an acronym would normally be
indicated in a word other than the final word if spelled out in full. A classic example is
Member of Parliament, which in plural is Members of Parliament. It is possible then to
abbreviate this as M's P.
[40][41]
(or similar
[42]
), as used by former Australian Prime Minister
Ben Chifley.
[43][44][45]
This usage is less common than forms with s at the end, such as MPs,
and may appear dated or pedantic. In common usage, therefore, weapons of mass destruction
becomes WMDs, prisoners of war becomes POWs, and runs batted in becomes RBIs
generally if the abbreviation ends with a tensed back vowel syllable. The plural of RBI is
"RBIs" because acronyms become bona fide words as language evolves, and as with other
words attract a plural suffix at the end to be made plural, even if the first word is the main
noun in the spelled-out form.
[46][47][48][49]

The argument that acronyms should have no different plural form (for example, "If D can
stand for disc, it can also stand for discs") is in general disregarded because of the practicality
in distinguishing singulars and plurals. This is not the case, however, when the abbreviation
is understood to describe a plural noun already: For example, U.S. is short for United States,
but not United State. In this case, the options for making a possessive form of an abbreviation
that is already in its plural form without a final s may seem awkward: for example, U.S.,
U.S.'s, etc. In such instances, possessive abbreviations are often foregone in favor of simple
attributive usage (for example, the U.S. economy) or expanding the abbreviation to its full
form and then making the possessive (for example, the United States economy). On the other
hand, in speech, the pronunciation United States's sometimes is used.
Abbreviations that come from single, rather than multiple, wordssuch as TV (television)
are usually pluralized without apostrophes (two TVs); most writers feel that the apostrophe
should be reserved for the possessive (the TV's antenna).
In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the acronym is used to indicate
plural words: for example, the Spanish EE. UU., for Estados Unidos (United States). This old
convention is still followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as SS. for
Saints, pp. for the Latin plural of pages, paginae, or MSS for manuscripts.
Case
All-caps style
The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms is all-uppercase (all-caps),
except for those few that have linguistically taken on an identity as regular words, with the
acronymous etymology of the words fading into the background of common knowledge, such
as has occurred with the words scuba, laser, and radarthese are known as anacronyms.
[50]

Small-caps variant
Small caps are sometimes used to make the run of capital letters seem less jarring to the
reader. For example, the style of some American publications, including the Atlantic Monthly
and USA Today, is to use small caps for acronyms longer than three letters
[citation needed]
; thus
"U.S." and "FDR" in normal caps, but "NATO" in small caps. The acronyms "AD" and "BC"
are often smallcapped as well, as in: "From 4004 BC to AD 525".
Mixed-case variant
Words derived from an acronym by affixing are typically expressed in mixed case, so the root
acronym is clear. For example "pre-WWII politics" or "post-NATO world". In some cases a
derived acronym may also be expressed in mixed case. For example, messenger RNA and
transfer RNA become mRNA and tRNA.
Pronunciation-dependent style
At the copyediting end of the publishing industry, where the aforementioned distinction
between acronyms (pronounced as a word) and initialisms (pronounced as a series of letters)
is usually maintained, some publishers choose to use cap/lowercase (c/lc) styling for
acronyms, reserving all-caps styling for initialisms. Thus Nato and Aids (c/lc), but USA and
FBI (caps). For example, this is the style used in The Guardian,
[51]
and BBC News typically
edits to this style (though its official style guide, dating from 2003, still recommends all-
caps
[52]
). The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the
capitalization scheme.
Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. The New York Times, for
example, keeps NATO in all capitals (while several guides in the British press may render it
Nato), but uses lower case in Unicef (from "United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund") because it is more than four letters, and to style it in caps might look
ungainly (flirting with the appearance of "shouting capitals").
Numerals and constituent words
While abbreviations typically exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and",
"or", "of", or "to"), this is not always the case. Sometimes they are included to make a
pronounceable acronym, such as CORE Congress of Racial Equality. Sometimes the letters
representing these words are written in lower case, such as in the cases of TfL (Transport for
London) and LotR (Lord of the Rings); this usually occurs when the acronym represents a
multi-word proper noun.
Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal) in names are often represented by digits rather than
initial letters: as in 4GL (Fourth generation language) or G77 (Group of 77). Large numbers
may use metric prefixes, as with Y2K for "Year 2000" (sometimes written Y2k, because the SI
symbol for 1000 is knot K, which stands for kelvin). Exceptions using initials for numbers
include TLA (three-letter acronym/abbreviation) and GoF (Gang of Four). Abbreviations
using numbers for other purposes include repetitions, such as W3C ("World Wide Web
Consortium") and T3 (Trends, Tips & Tools for Everyday Living); pronunciation, such as B2B
("business to business"); and numeronyms, such as i18n ("internationalization"; 18 represents
the 18 letters between the initial i and the final n).
Casing of expansions
Although many users of natural language, when engaging in expository writing, show a
predisposition to capitalizing the initials of the expansion for pedagogical emphasis (trying to
thrust the reader's attention toward where the letters are coming from), this has no basis in
standard English orthography, which reserves capitals for maintaining the common-versus-
proper distinction. Enforcing the latter, most professional editors case-fold such expansions
to their standard orthography when editing manuscripts for publication.
[53]
The justification is
that (1) readers are smart enough to figure out where the letters came from, even without their
being capitalized for emphasis, and that (2) common nouns do not take capital initials in
standard English orthography. By the same expectation (point 1), bold or italic font for the
letters is considered equally unnecessary. For example,
"the onset of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)" (unpublished manuscript)
and
"the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)" (unpublished manuscript)
become
"the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)" (published medical article)
Not all publishers copyedit content before publishing it, however, so unedited styling is seen
frequently.
Changes to (or word play on) the expanded meaning
Pseudo-acronyms
In some cases, an acronym has been redefined as a non-acronymous namecreating a
pseudo-acronym. The term "orphan initialism" has also been used for names that began as an
acronym but lost this status.
[54][55]
Such an apparent acronym or other abbreviation that does
not stand for anything cannot be expanded to some meaning. For example, the letters of the
SAT (pronounced as letters) US college entrance test no longer officially stand for
anything.
[56]
This is common with companies that want to retain brand recognition while
moving away from an outdated image: American Telephone and Telegraph became
AT&T,
[54]
Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC to de-emphasize the role of frying in the
preparation of its signature dishes,
[57]
and British Petroleum became BP.
[55][58]

Pseudo-acronyms may have advantages in international markets: for example, some national
affiliates of International Business Machines are legally incorporated as "IBM" (or, for
example, "IBM Canada") to avoid translating the full name into local languages. Likewise,
"UBS" is the name of the merged Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank
Corporation,
[59]
and "HSBC" has replaced "The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking
Corporation."
Redundant acronyms and RAS syndrome
Main article: RAS syndrome
Rebranding can lead to redundant acronym syndrome, as when Trustee Savings Bank became
TSB Bank, or when Railway Express Agency became REA Express. A few high-tech
companies have taken the redundant acronym to the extreme: for example, ISM Information
Systems Management Corp. and SHL Systemhouse Ltd. An example in entertainment is the
television shows CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Navy: NCIS (Navy was dropped in the
second season), where the redundancy was likely designed to educate new viewers as to what
the initials stood for. The same reasoning was in evidence when the Royal Bank of Canada's
Canadian operations rebranded to RBC Royal Bank, or when Bank of Montreal rebranded
their retail banking subsidiary BMO Bank of Montreal.
Another common example is RAM memory, which is redundant because RAM (random-
access memory) includes the initial of the word memory. PIN stands for personal
identification number, obviating the second word in PIN number; in this case its retention
may be motivated to avoid ambiguity with the homophonous word "pin". Other examples
include ATM machine (automated teller machine machine), EAB bank (European American
Bank bank), DC Comics (Detective Comics Comics), HIV virus (human immunodeficiency
virus virus), Microsoft's NT Technology (New Technology Technology) and the formerly
redundant SAT test (Scholastic Achievement/Aptitude/Assessment Test test, now simply SAT
Reasoning Test). TNN (The Nashville/National Network) also renamed itself The New TNN
for a brief interlude.
The UK defence contractor BAE Systems was formed when British Aerospace (BAe) merged
with Marconi Electronic Systems (MES). According to the company's branding policy, the
BAE part of the name is said to "not stand for anything" and the company insist that "we are
always BAE Systems, never BAE or BAES".
Simple redefining
Sometimes, the initials continue to stand for an expanded meaning, but the original meaning
is simply replaced. Some examples:
DVD was originally an acronym of the unofficial term digital video disk, but is now stated by
the DVD Forum as standing for Digital Versatile Disc.
GAO changed the full form of its name from General Accounting Office to Government
Accountability Office.
The OCLC changed the full form of its name from Ohio College Library Center to Online
Computer Library Center.
RAID used to mean Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, but is now commonly interpreted
as Redundant Array of Independent Disks.
WWF originally stood for World Wildlife Fund, but now stands for Worldwide Fund for
Nature (although the former name is still used in Canada and the US).
Backronyms
Main article: Backronym
A backronym (or bacronym) is a phrase that is constructed "after the fact" from a previously
existing word. For example, the novelist and critic Anthony Burgess once proposed that the
word "book" ought to stand for "Box Of Organized Knowledge."
[60]
A classic real-world
example of this in action is the name of the predecessor to the Apple Macintosh, The Apple
Lisa, which was said to refer to "Local Integrated Software Architecture", but Steve Jobs'
daughter, born 1978, was named Lisa.
Contrived acronyms
Acronyms are sometimes contrived, that is, deliberately designed to be especially apt for the
thing being named (by having a dual meaning or by borrowing the positive connotations of
an existing word). Some examples of contrived acronyms are USA PATRIOT, CAN SPAM,
CAPTCHA and ACT UP. The clothing company French Connection began referring to itself
as fcuk, standing for "French Connection United Kingdom." The company then created t-
shirts and several advertising campaigns that exploit the acronym's similarity to the taboo
word "fuck". See the list of fictional espionage organizations for more examples of contrived
acronyms.
The US Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is
known for developing contrived acronyms to name projects, including RESURRECT,
NIRVANA, and DUDE. In July 2010, Wired Magazine reported that DARPA announced
programs to "..transform biology from a descriptive to a predictive field of science" named
BATMAN and ROBIN for Biochronicity and Temporal Mechanisms Arising in Nature and
Robustness of Biologically-Inspired Networks,
[61]
a reference to the Batman and Robin
comic-book superheroes.
Some acronyms are chosen deliberately to avoid a name considered undesirable: For
example, Verliebt in Berlin (ViB), a German telenovela, was first intended to be Alles nur aus
Liebe (All for Love), but was changed to avoid the resultant acronym ANAL. Likewise, the
Computer Literacy and Internet Technology qualification is known as CLaIT,
[62]
rather than
CLIT. In Canada, the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance (Party) was quickly renamed
to the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance when its opponents pointed out that its initials
spelled CCRAP (pronounced "see crap"). (The satirical magazine Frank had proposed
alternatives to CCRAP, namely SSHIT and NSDAP.) Two Irish Institutes of Technology
(Galway and Tralee) chose different acronyms from other institutes when they were upgraded
from Regional Technical colleges. Tralee RTC became the Institute of Technology Tralee
(ITT), as opposed to Tralee Institute of Technology (TIT). Galway RTC became Galway-
Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), as opposed to Galway Institute of Technology (GIT).
Team in Training is known as TNT and not TIT. Technological Institute of Textile &
Sciences is still known as TITS.
Contrived acronyms differ from backronyms in that they were originally conceived with the
artificial expanded meaning, whereas backronyms are later-invented expansions.
[citation needed]

Macronyms/nested acronyms
A macronym, or nested acronym, is an acronym in which one or more letters stand for
acronyms themselves. The word "macronym" is a portmanteau of "macro-" and "acronym".
Some examples of macronyms are:
XHR stands for XML HTTP Request, in which XML is eXtensible Markup Language, and HTTP
stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.
POWER stands for "Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC", in which RISC stands
for Reduced Instruction Set Computing.
VHDL stands for "VHSIC Hardware Description Language", in which VHSIC stands for Very
High Speed Integrated Circuit.
XSD stands for "XML Schema Definition", in which XML stands for eXtensible Markup
Language.
SECS stands for "SEMI equipment communication standard", in which SEMI stands for
"Semiconductor equipment manufacturing industries".
AIM stands for "AOL Instant Messenger", in which AOL stands for America Online.
Some macronyms can be multiply nestedthe second order acronym points to another one
further down a hierarchy. In an informal competition run by the magazine New Scientist, a
fully documented specimen was discovered that may be the most deeply nested of all: RARS
is the "Regional ATOVS Retransmission Service", ATOVS is Advanced TOVS, TOVS is
TIROS operational vertical sounder and TIROS is Television infrared observational
satellite.
[63]

Recursive acronyms
Main article: Recursive acronym
A special type of macronym, the recursive acronym, has letters whose expansion refers back
to the macronym itself. One of the earliest examples appears in The Hacker's Dictionary as
MUNG, which stands for "MUNG Until No Good".
Some examples of recursive acronyms are:
GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix"
LAME stands for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder"
PHP stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor"
WINE stands for "WINE Is Not an Emulator"
HURD stands for "HIRD of Unix-replacing daemons", where HIRD itself stands for "HURD of
interfaces representing depth" (a "mutually recursive" acronym)
Non-English language
Asian languages
Chinese
In English language discussion of languages with syllabic or logographic writing systems
(such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), acronym describes short forms that take selected
characters from a multi-character word.
For example, in Chinese, the word ""/"" ("university" in traditional/simplified
Chinese, literally "big school"), when used with the name of the university, is usually
abbreviated simply as "" *"big"). So "" (Beijing University ("" = "Beijing",
literally "north capital")) is commonly abbreviated to "" (literally "north big"). In this
case, the first characters "" and "" from "" and "" are taken to compose the
short form. In some cases, however, other characters than the first can be selected. For
example, the local short form of "" (Hong Kong University, "" = "Hong
Kong") is "" rather than "".
There are also cases where some longer phrases are abbreviated drastically, especially in
Chinese politics, where proper nouns were initially translated from Soviet Leninist terms. For
instance, the full name of China's highest ruling council, the Politburo Standing Committee
(PSC), is "Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of
China" (). The term then reduced the "Communist Party
of China" part of its name through acronyms, then the "Standing Committee" part, again
through acronyms, to create "". Alternatively, it omitted the
"Communist Party" part altogether, creating "Politburo Standing Committee"
(), and eventually just "Standing Committee" (). The PSC's members
full designations are "Member of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of
the Communist Party of China" (); this was
eventually drastically reduced to simply Changwei (), with the term Ruchang ()
used increasingly for officials destined for a future seat on the PSC. In another example, the
word "" (National People's Congress) can be broken into four parts:
"" = "the whole nation", "" = "people", "" = "representatives", "" =
"conference". Yet, in its short form "" (literally "man/people big"), only the first
characters from the second and the fourth parts are selected; the first part ("") and the
third part ("") are simply ignored. In describing such abbreviations, the term initialism is
inapplicable.
[original research?]

Many proper nouns become shorter and shorter over time. For example, the CCTV New
Year's Gala, whose full name is literally read as "China Central Television Spring Festival
Joint Celebration Evening Gala" () was first shortened to
"Spring Festival Joint Celebration Evening Gala" (), but eventually referred to
as simply Chunwan (). Along the same vein, Zhongguo Zhongyang Dianshi Tai
() was reduced to Yangshi () in the mid-2000s.
Japanese
Main article: Japanese abbreviated and contracted words
The Japanese language makes extensive use of acronyms. This is most prevalent in katakana
transcriptions of foreign words; for example, the Pokmon media franchise's name originally
stood for "pocket monsters" ( ), which is still the long-
form of the name in Japanese, and "wpuro" stands for "word processor"
( ). However, the practice is also common with native
kanji and hiragana words.
Indonesian
See also: List of Indonesian acronyms and abbreviations
There is also a widespread use of acronyms in Indonesia in every aspect of social life. For
example, the Golkar political party stands for Partai Golongan Karya, Monas stands for
"Monumen Nasional" (National Monument), the Angkot public transport stands for
"Angkutan Kota" (city public transportation), warnet stands for "warung internet" (internet
cafe), and many others. Some acronyms are considered formal (or officially adopted), while
many more are considered informal, slang or colloquial.
The capital's metropolitan area (Jakarta and its surrounding satellite regions), Jabodetabek, is
another infamous acronym. This stands for Jakarta-Bogor-Depok-Tangerang-Bekasi. Many
highways are also named by the acronym method; e.g. Jalan Tol (Toll Road) Jagorawi
(Jakarta-Bogor-Ciawi) and Purbaleunyi (Purwakarta-Bandung-Cileunyi), Joglo Semar
(Jogja-solo-semarang).
In some languages, especially those that use certain alphabets, many acronyms come from the
military. The Indonesian military (TNITentara Nasional Indonesia) and Indonesian police
(POLRIKepolisian Republik Indonesia) are infamous for heavy acronyms use. Examples
include the Kopassus (Komando Pasukan Khusus; Special Forces Command), Kopaska
(Komando Pasukan Katak; Frogmen Command), Kodim (Komando Distrik Militer; Military
District Commandone of the Indonesian army's administrative divisions), Serka (Sersan
Kepala; Head Sergeant), Akmil (Akademi Militer; Military Academyin Magelang) and
many other terms regarding ranks, units, divisions, procedures, etc.
Heavy acronym use by Indonesians, makes it difficult for foreigners and learners of Bahasa
Indonesia to seek information and news in Indonesian media.
[citation needed]

German
To a greater degree than English does, German tends toward acronyms that use initial
syllables rather than initial single letters, although it uses many of the latter type as well.
Some examples of the syllabic type are Gestapo rather than GSP (for Geheime Staatspolizei,
secret state police); Flak rather than FAK (for Fliegerabwehrkanone, anti-aircraft gun); Kripo
rather than KP (for Kriminalpolizei, detective division police). The extension of such
contraction to a pervasive or whimsical degree has been mockingly labeled Akfi (for
Abkrzungsfimmel, strange habit of abbreviating). Examples of Akfi include Vokuhila (for
vorne kurz, hinten lang, short in the front, long in the back, i.e., a mullet) and the mocking of
Adolf Hitler's title as Grfaz (Grter Feldherr aller Zeiten, Greatest General of all Times).
Russian
Acronyms that use syllables are commonplace in Russian as well, e.g. (Gazprom,
for /Gazovaya promyshlennost, gas industry). There are also
initialisms, such as (SMI, for /sredstva massovoy
informatsii, means of mass informing, i.e. mass media). Another Russian acronym,
(GULag) combines initials and a syllable: it stands for
(Glavnoe upravlenie lagerey, Chief Administration of Camps).
Hebrew
Main article: Hebrew acronyms
It is common to take more than just one initial letter from each of the words composing the
acronym; regardless of this, the abbreviation sign gershayim is always written between the
second-last and last letters of the non-inflected form of the acronym, even if by this it
separates letters of the same original word. Examples: (for , the United
States); (for , the Soviet Union); (for , Rishon LeZion);
sti morf srettel laitini eht ylno sekat taht elpmaxe nA .(loohcs eht , rof)
component words is ("Tzahal", for , Israel Defense Forces). In inflected
forms the abbreviation sign gershayim remains between the second-last and last letters of the
non-inflected form of the acronym (e.g. "report", singular: "", plural: ""; "squad
commander", masculine: "", feminine: "").
Swahili
In Swahili, acronyms are common for naming organizations such as TUKI, which stands for
"Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili" (the institute for Swahili research). Multiple initial
letters (often the initial syllable of words) are often drawn together, as seen more in some
languages than others.
Declension
In languages where nouns are declined, various methods are used. An example is Finnish,
where a colon is used to separate inflection from the letters:
An acronym is pronounced as a word: Nato [nato]Natoon *naton+ "into Nato"
An acronym is pronounced as letters: EU *e u+EU:hun *e uhun+ "into EU"
An acronym is interpreted as words: EU *europan unioni+EU:iin *europan unionin+ "into
EU"
The process above is similar to how, in English, hyphens are used for clarity when prefixes
are added to acronyms, thus pre-NATO policy (rather than preNATO).
Lenition
In languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Irish, where lenition (initial consonant mutation) is
commonplace, acronyms must also be modified in situations where case and context dictate
it. In the case of Scottish Gaelic, a lower case "h" is added after the initial consonant; for
example, BBC Scotland in the genitive case would be written as BhBC Alba, with the
acronym pronounced "VBC". Likewise, the Gaelic acronym for "television" (gd: telebhisean)
is TBh, pronounced "TV", as in English.
Extremes
The longest acronym, according to the 1965 edition of Acronyms, Initialisms and
Abbreviations Dictionary, is ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC, a United States Navy term that
stands for "Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate
Command." Another term COMNAVSEACOMBATSYSENGSTA, which stands for "Commander,
Naval Sea Systems Combat Engineering Station" is longer but the word "Combat" is not
shortened.
The world's longest acronym, according to the Guinness Book of World Records is
NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT
(). The 56-letter
acronym (54 in Cyrillic) is from the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology and means "The
laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for
composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of
Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for
building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." (- [...]
-
-
)
The card-game Magic The Gathering has a playing card called "Our Market Research Shows
That Players Like Really Long Card Names So We Made this Card to Have the Absolute
Longest Card Name Ever Elemental", with text on it saying: "Just call it
OMRSTPLRLCNSWMTCTHTALCNEE for short."
[64]

See also
Acronyms in healthcare
Acronyms in the Philippines
Acrostic
Amalgamation (names)
Astronomical Acronyms
Backronym
Initialized sign
Internet slang
List of abbreviations
List of abbreviations in photography
List of acronyms
List of fictional espionage organizations
List of Japanese Latin alphabetic abbreviations
-onym
Portmanteau
RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome)
Recursive acronym
Syllabic abbreviation
Three letter acronym












An acronym (pronounced AK-ruh-nihm, from Greek acro- in the sense of extreme or tip and
onyma or name) is an abbreviation of several words in such a way that the abbreviation itself
forms a pronounceable word. The word may already exist or it can be a new word. Webster's
cites snafu and radar, two terms of World War Two vintage, as examples of acronyms that
were created.
According to the strictest definition of an acronym, only abbreviations that are pronounced as
words qualify. So by these standards, for example, COBOL is an acronym because it's
pronounced as a word but WHO (World Health Organization) is not an acronym because the
letters in the abbreviation are pronounced individually. However, opinions differ on what
constitutes an acronym: Merriam-Webster, for example, says that an acronym is just "a word
formed from the initial letters of a multi-word name."
Frequently, acronyms are formed that use existing words (and sometimes the acronym is
invented first and the phrase name represented is designed to fit the acronym). Here are some
examples of acronyms that use existing words:
BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
NOW (National Organization for Women)
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
Abbreviations that use the first letter of each word in a phrase are sometimes referred to as
initialisms. Initialisms can be but are not always acronyms. AT&T, BT, CBS, CNN, IBM,
and NBC are initialisms that are not acronyms. Many acronym lists you'll see are really lists
of acronyms and initialisms or just lists of abbreviations. (Note that abbreviations include
shortened words like "esp." for "especially" as well as shortened phrases.)
Summing up:
An abbreviation is a shortening of a word or a phrase.
An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a word.
An initialism is an abbreviation that uses the first letter of each word in the phrase
(thus, some but not all initialisms are acronyms).
Furthermore:
An acronym so familiar that no one remembers what it stands for is called an
anacronym (For example, few people know that COBOL stands for Common
Business Oriented Language.)
An acronym in which one of the letters stands for the actual word abbreviated therein
is called a recursive acronym. (For example, VISA is said to stand for VISA
International Service Association.)
An acronym in which the short form was original and words made up to stand for it
afterwards is called a backronym. (For example, SOS was originally chosen as a
distress signal because it lent itself well to Morse code. Long versions, including Save
Our Ship and Save our Souls, came later.)
An acronym whose letters spell a word meaningful in the context of the term it stands
for is called an apronym. (For example, BASIC, which stands for Beginner's All-
purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, is a very simple programming language.)