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Backronym
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A backronym (or bacronym) is a reverse acronym, a phrase constructed after the fact to make an existing word or words into an acronym.
Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology.
The word is a portmanteau combining back and acronym, first cited in a 1983 Washington Post column and defined as the 'same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters.'
Backronym versus acronym
An acronym is a pronounceable word derived from the initial letters of a phrase: For example, the word radar comes from "Radio Detection and Ranging".
By contrast, a backronym is constructed by starting with a word and creating a new phrase using the letters in the word as the initial letters of the words in the phrase.
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Encyclopedia
A backronym (or bacronym) is a reverse acronym, a phrase constructed after the fact to make an existing word or words into an acronym.
Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology.
The word is a portmanteau combining back and acronym, first cited in a 1983 Washington Post column and defined as the 'same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters.'
Backronym versus acronym
An acronym is a pronounceable word derived from the initial letters of a phrase: For example, the word radar comes from "Radio Detection and Ranging".
By contrast, a backronym is constructed by starting with a word and creating a new phrase using the letters in the word as the initial letters of the words in the phrase. The word then becomes an acronym of the phrase. In this sense, a backronym is the reversal of an acronym.
The idea that a backronym, like an acronym, is a pronounceable word, is sometimes broken, even by dictionaries providing examples such as DVD (an initialism) and SOS (a representation of the emergency signal used in Morse code).
Examples
Jokes and pejorative meanings
- TWAIN - Technology Without An Interesting Name.
- FORD - Fix Or Repair Daily or Found On Road, Dead.
Education
Backronyms can be constructed for educational purposes, for example to form mnemonics so that the new initialism is easier to remember.
An example of such a mnemonic is the Apgar score, used to assess the health of newborn children. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar, but ten years after the initial publication, the backronym APGAR
was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: Appearance (skin color), Pulse (heart rate), Grimace (reflex irritability), Activity (muscle tone), and Respiration.
12-step Programs
Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs have a verbal culture that makes extensive use of backronyms. They're used as teaching tools, similar to slogans like "one day at a time," or "Let go, let God," but often have an ironic edge.
- God = Good Orderly Direction
- Halt = Hungry Angry Lonely or Tired
- Fear = False Evidence Appearing Real / Forgetting everything is all right / Forget Everything And Run / Face Everything And Recover
- Slip = Sobriety Losing Its Priority
- Denial = Don't Even Notice I Am Lying
- Fine = Filled up (or Freaked out), Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional
False acronyms
Sometimes the backronym is so commonly heard, that it is generally but incorrectly believed to have been used in the formation of the word, and amounts to a folk etymology or an urban legend. Examples of these include:
- The word wiki, halved from the Hawaiian phrase "wiki wiki" meaning "quick". Since its application to consumer generated media, some have suggested that "wiki" means "What I Know Is".
- Adidas has been explained as "All Day I Dream About Sport". The word Adidas actually comes from the nickname of the company's founder, Adi Dassler. It was also alternatively backronymed as "All Day I Dream About Sex", a backronym popularized by the band Korn and rapper Killer Mike, who recorded a song A.D.I.D.A.S.. In Spanish, a popular and sarcastic backronym for Adidas is "Asociación De Idiotas Dispuestos A Superarse" ("Association Of Idiots Willing To Improve").
- Kiss is simply the name of the band, but an urban legend developed which claims that the letters stand for "Knights (or Kings) In Satan's Service".
- Perl does not stand for Practical Extraction and Report Language (although the phrase appears in ) According to , Perl is not an acronym.
- Posh did not originally stand for "Port Out, Starboard Home" (referring to 1st class cabins shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east, and homeward heading voyages west). The musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang popularised this erroneous etymology.
- Golf is not an acronym for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden" as has been suggested. It is actually derived from the old Scots name for the game, gowf. This word may, in turn, be related to the Dutch word kolf, meaning "bat", or "club", and the Dutch sport called Kolven.
- Ping does not stand for "Packet InterNet Grouper", "Packet InterNet Groper", "Packet InterNet Gopher" or any such phrase. The name is merely a reference to sonar.
See also
External links
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- is not specifically about backronyms, but several false examples are discussed among its articles.
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- generates contextual backronyms
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