Acronyms

[Daedalus]

An acronym is usually an abbreviation, formed with initial components of a word or phrase. Think of words like UFO (Unidentified Flying Object), CPU (Central Processing Unit), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

We see them a lot today in words like lol, iirc, brb, and so on.

There are several types of acronyms, often they're slightly adapted with non-initial letters, for better readability, for example radar (radio detection and ranging).

Care must be taken when choosing a name or title, to ensure its acronym is not anything offensive. The Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party would be CCRAP, for example, so they had to change the name.

It can be fun to come up with backronyms, which are acronyms based on already existing words. For example, the name Ford (named after Henry Ford) has received the backronyms First On Race Day, but also Fix Or Repair Daily.

Do you know any more acronyms or backronyms? Or any names that spell out something offensive when made into an acronym? And, here's your assignment for today , what do you think is a macronym?

[zambothegreat]

Is backronym in the dictionary? Ha ha. One of the more famous backronyms is BMW: Bus, Metro, Walk.

And here's what I found for macronym:

http://www.wordnik.com/words/macronym

Pretty interesting. It definitely would be useful to shorten all that to PISB.

[limon]

My favorite backronym is the entirely apocryphal but terribly risqué when you're a kid, origins of the most popular dirty word in the English language.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-f-word.htm