The word snoop - Ursula Dubosarsky 2009

Acronyms
Letters, letters, letters

Acronyms

WDYS?

Acronyms

??

GAFOFY!

TFN

YW TTYL

NIICHI

Did you understand this conversation? Would it help if I told you it’s written mainly in acronyms? Um, would it help if I told you what an acronym is?

The word comes from two ancient Greek words—acro, meaning “top,” and onoma, meaning “name.” An acronym is an abbreviation of a phrase or sentence, where you use only the beginning letter or letters of the words to say what you mean. So in the conversation above, WDYS? stands for What Did You Say? and GAFOFY! stands for Go And Find Out For Yourself! Then it goes on: Thanks For Nothing. You’re Welcome. Talk To You Later. Not If I Can Help It. (Gee, NVF . . . I mean, Not Very Friendly.)

These are the sorts of acronyms people use when texting a friend or talking in an Internet chat room. Internet slang languages, like LOL and Leet, are made up largely of acronyms. But acronyms have been around for thousands of years before the Internet was even invented.

Way back in the empire of ancient Rome, acronyms were used for inscriptions in stone. This was sensible, as it saved a lot of space and time and also stopped your hand from getting sore from too much carving. Instead of having to write Pia Fidelis, meaning “pious and faithful,” the stone carver only had to put the letters PF and everyone knew what it meant. (Let’s hope so, anyway . . .) One of the most famous acronyms in all history, which was carved on many public monuments, is SPQR—SenatusPopulus queRomanus, the “Senate and the People of Rome.”

Another acronym you may have heard of dates back to the second and third centuries AD. The early Christians used the very fishy word ICHTHUS to identify each other. It was an acronym of the Greek words Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter, meaning “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” In this case, the acronym also spelled out the Greek word for “fish,” which is why the fish is still a symbol used by some Christians today.

Acronyms are found in other religions too. In Islamic writing, you may see the acronym SAW written in brackets after the name of the Prophet Mohammed. It stands for the Arabic Salla Allahu alaihi Wa Sallam, meaning “peace be upon him.” And Catholic books and websites are full of Latin acronyms like AMDG (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, “for the greater glory of God”) and DV (Deo Volente, “God willing”).

In the Jewish religion acronyms were particularly popular in the Middle Ages. Some people believed the Hebrew letters themselves had mystical meanings, which made acronyms very special, and they were used in prayers and blessings and things like that. Important rabbis were even known by acronyms of their names—for example, the eleventh-century Jewish leader Rabbi Isaac Ben Asher was also called RIBA.

But the real explosion in acronyms happened in the twentieth century. It was actually during World War Two (I mean, WWII) in the 1940s that the word acronymfirst started being widely used—and you can see why! The army had lots and lots of acronyms—not only for all the divisions and ranks of officers, but also for things like the COMAMPHIBFORSOPAC (Commander, Amphibious Force, South Pacific). Phew! And let’s hope no one you know of was ever KDPOW (Killed or Died while a Prisoner Of War).

After WWII, acronyms had become so fashionable it seemed almost every new organization had one—UNESCO, NATO, UNICEF, and many others. It was the same in the field of science and technology. New discoveries were being made all the time, and some words were so long and strange that it made sense to use acronyms. Let’s face it, DNA is much easier to say and remember than Deoxyribonucleic Acid.

Not everybody liked all these acronyms, though. The English writer George Orwell certainly didn’t. In his novel set in the future called 1984 (well, that was the future way back then!), he invented a kind of language called New-speak, where the government used acronyms and abbreviations on purpose to hide what was really going on. Orwell had noticed that Nazi and Communist governments did this with some not-very-pleasant organizations like the SS (Schutz Staffel, “protective squad”) and the NKGB (Narodnyi Komissariat Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, “People’s Commissariat of State Security”). He thought once a government starts using a lot of acronyms, it was definitely BN (Bad News).

But sometimes acronyms are JFF (Just For Fun). The novelist P. G. Wodehouse created a lovely, silly character called Bertie Wooster, who scattered ridiculous acronyms throughout his conversations, such as “I put my F in my H” (“I put my Face in my Hands”) or “In my humble O” (“In my humble Opinion”). These are more like the acronyms used in text messages, e-mails and chat rooms. In fact, IMHO is one of the most commonly used!

Sometimes, groups of people who use a lot of acronyms in their work forget that other people have no idea what they’re talking about. Every profession seems to have its own set of peculiar acronyms. But here’s a tip from the Word Snoop—don’t despair if you come across a really unusual acronym. Go to the Internet and look up an acronym-finder website, and it will explain unknown acronyms for you.

LLL (Latin, Latin, Latin)

Funnily enough, a few of the really common acronyms we use in everyday life don’t even come from English but from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. This is because Latin was used in schools and universities as a common language in Europe right up until at least the fifteenth century. So AM and PM, which you know mean “morning” and “afternoon,” actually stand for the Latin words Ante Meridiem and Post Meridiem, meaning “before midday” and “after midday.”

And PS, those two letters you put at the end of an e-mail or a letter when you want to add something extra, stands for Post Scriptum, which means “after writing.” Then there’s i.e. or id est, which means “that is”; and e.g. or exempli gratia, which means “for example.” And, of course, our old friend etc.—et cetera, which means “and the rest of them.”

Now, what about AD and BC? Well, AD dates back to the sixth century AD, and is short for Anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord.” The “Lord” is the Christian leader Jesus Christ, who was determined to have been born in AD 1. It wasn’t until several hundred years later that people felt they wanted an acronym for all those centuries before AD. By then English was more popular than Latin, so BC simply stands for Before Christ. (No translation needed!)

Well-mannered acronyms

AD and BC come from the Christian religion, but they’ve been used in many countries and cultures over the years, including non-Christian ones. More and more, though, you’ll see BCE and CE instead, which stand for Before Common Era and Common Era. Some people like it better than AD and BC, because it doesn’t sound so religious. It’s still referring to the birth of Jesus Christ, of course, just not saying it OUT LOUD (shhh!).

Another foreign language acronym that’s also rather polite is RSVP, which stands for the French Respondez S’il Vous Plait, meaning “please answer.” This was adopted in English as a delicate way of reminding people that it’s good manners to answer the invitation, ORELSE!

Dot dot dot

When acronyms were less common, it was usual to write them in capital letters with periods after each initial—like U.S.A. (United States of America) or C.A.T. (Computed Axial Tomography) scan. Nowadays, while the periods are more often left out, the capitals still remain—USA, CAT—to show it was once an acronym.

Sometimes a word will become so common that both the periods and the capitals disappear, and hardly anyone remembers that it was ever an acronym. So L.A.S.E.R. (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) became LASER and is now just plain old laser. That’s what you call a really successful acronym. (Well done!)

And finally the backronym . . .

Sometimes acronyms have been worked out backward to fit a word that already exists. They’re called backronyms. People do this for lots of different reasons:

* to make you laugh, e.g., PICNIC—Problem In Chair Not In Computer

* to tell you what to do, e.g., DEAR—Drop Everything And Read

* to give something complicated a simple name, so that it’s easier to identify or sell, e.g., the computer language BASIC—Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

* to help you remember something important, e.g., the Olympic gold-medalist Cathy Freeman used the backronym FLAG to help her win races—Fly Leg-speed Attack Go!

* as a kind of brain teaser, where the words that make up the acronym actually explain what it means, e.g., SPAM—Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages

And then there are the Word Snoop’s favorite backronyms, the ones that form a secret code. During WWII, soldiers who were posted overseas would write backronyms, using the names of countries, on the backs of letters they sent home. Now, if the person receiving it didn’t know it was a backronym, they would just frown and say, “How very peculiar!” But if they understood . . . aha!

Don’t get too excited, though; they were mainly love letters. So ITALY on the back of an envelope meant “I Trust And Love You” and HOLLAND meant “Hope Our Love Lasts And Never Dies.” (Ahh.)

Hmm. What do you think MALAYA stood for? Well, it could be:

My Auntie Lucy Ate Your Apple

or

My Ardent Lips Await Your Arrival

I bet you could make up some amazing backronyms out of the names of countries yourself. Go on, give it a try—it doesn’t have to be a love letter (that’s a relief!). Any sort of secret message will do. Here are a few the Word Snoop just made up:

JAPAN (Jelly And Pies Are Nice)

SYRIA (Send Your Red Iguana Away)

Why don’t you try with TONGA or CHILE? Or, for a real challenge, what about UZBEKISTAN!

Me again, Word Snoops! My guess is you’re getting very good at cracking codes by now. See how you do with this one. (Hint: Think about what a lipogram is.)

REAE AN ASTARLY COES

Answers

ANAGRAMS

1. North. South, East, West

2. Silent

3. Astronomer

4. The Morse Code

5. Hibernates

LIPOGRAMS

1. Lipogram on E

2. Lipogram on A

3. Lipogram on O