Backronym

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Humorous example of a backronym used by NASA to name a treadmill on the International Space Station, in reference to American comedian Stephen Colbert COLBERT patch.jpg
Humorous example of a backronym used by NASA to name a treadmill on the International Space Station, in reference to American comedian Stephen Colbert

A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The word is a portmanteau of back and acronym. [1]

Contents

A normal acronym is a word derived from the initial letters of the words of a phrase, [2] such as radar from "radio detection and ranging". [3] By contrast, a backronym is "an acronym deliberately formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, either to create a memorable name or as a fanciful explanation of a word's origin". [1] Many fictional espionage organizations are backronyms, such as SPECTRE (special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion) from the James Bond franchise.

For example, the Amber Alert missing-child program was named after Amber Hagerman, a nine-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in 1996. [4] Officials later publicized the backronym "America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response". [5]

Examples

An example of a backronym as a mnemonic is the Apgar score, used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar. Ten years after the initial publication, the backronym APGAR was coined in the US as a mnemonic learning aid: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration. [6] Another example is the American Contract Bridge League's tools to address cheating in online bridge games. EDGAR was originally named for Edgar Kaplan, whose many contributions to the game included groundbreaking efforts to reduce illegal partnership communication. The new EDGAR tools expected to debut in early 2024 have been launched with the backronym "everyone deserves a game above reproach". [7]

Many United States Congress bills have backronyms as their names; [8] examples include the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) of 2001, and the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act). [8]

As false etymologies

Sometimes a backronym is reputed to have been used in the formation of the original word, and amounts to a false etymology or an urban legend. Acronyms were rare in the English language before the 1930s, and most etymologies of common words or phrases that suggest origin from an acronym are false. [9]

Examples include posh , an adjective describing stylish items or members of the upper class. A popular story derives the word as an acronym from "port out, starboard home", referring to 19th-century first-class cabins on ocean liners, which were shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east (e.g. from Britain to India) and homeward voyages west. [10] The word's actual etymology is unknown, but more likely related to Romani påš xåra ('half-penny') or to Urdu (borrowed from Persian) safed-pōśh ('white robes'), a term for wealthy people. [11]

Another example is the word chav , which is a derogatory term for a working-class youth. This word is probably of Romani origin [12] but commonly believed to be a backronym of "council-housed and violent". [13]

Similarly, the distress signal SOS is often believed to be an abbreviation for "save our ship" or "save our souls" but was chosen because it has a simple and unmistakable Morse code representation – three dots, three dashes, and three dots, sent without any pauses between characters. [14]

More recent examples include the brand name Adidas, named after company founder Adolf "Adi" Dassler but falsely believed to be an acronym for "all day I dream about sport". [15] [ pages needed ]

The word Wiki is said to stand for "what I know is", [16] but in fact is derived from the Hawaiian phrase wiki-wiki meaning 'fast'. [17]

Yahoo!, sometimes claimed to mean "yet another hierarchical officious oracle", in fact was chosen because Yahoo's founders liked the word's meaning of "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth" (taken from Jonathan Swift's book Gulliver's Travels ). [18] The distress call "pan-pan" is commonly stated to mean "possible assistance needed", whereas it is in fact derived from the French word panne, meaning 'breakdown'. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

A false etymology is a false theory about the origin or derivation of a specific word or phrase. When a false etymology becomes a popular belief in a cultural/linguistic community, it is a folk etymology. Nevertheless, folk/popular etymology may also refer to the process by which a word or phrase is changed because of a popular false etymology. To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between the derivational-only popular etymology (DOPE) and the generative popular etymology (GPE): the DOPE refers to a popular false etymology involving no neologization, and the GPE refers to neologization generated by a popular false etymology.

Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsiders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mnemonic</span> Learning technique that aids remembering

A mnemonic device or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember.

The suffix -onym is a bound morpheme, that is attached to the end of a root word, thus forming a new compound word that designates a particular class of names. In linguistic terminology, compound words that are formed with suffix -onym are most commonly used as designations for various onomastic classes. Most onomastic terms that are formed with suffix -onym are classical compounds, whose word roots are taken from classical languages.

Etymology is the study of the origin and evolution of words, including their constituent units of sound and of meaning, across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. Most directly tied to historical linguistics, philology, and semiotics, it additionally draws upon comparative semantics, morphology, pragmatics, and phonetics in order to attempt a comprehensive and chronological catalogue of all meanings and changes that a word carries throughout its history. The origin of any particular word is also known as its etymology.

Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological)reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes.

"Chav", also "charver", "scally" and "roadman" in parts of England, is a British term, usually used in a pejorative way. The term is used to describe an anti-social lower-class youth dressed in sportswear. The use of the word has been described as a form of "social racism". "Chavette" is a related term referring to female chavs, and the adjectives "chavvy", "chavvish", and "chavtastic" are used to describe things associated with chavs, such as fashion, slang, etc. In other countries like Ireland, "skanger" is used in a similar manner. In Ontario, the term is "hoodman", an equivalent of the term "roadman" used in England. In Newfoundland, "skeet" is used in a similar way, while in Australia, "eshay" or "adlay" is used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acronym</span> Abbreviation consisting of initial letters of a phrase

An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eggcorn</span> Altered phrase that is still plausible

An eggcorn is the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements, creating a new phrase having a different meaning from the original but which still makes sense and is plausible when used in the same context. Thus, an eggcorn is an unexpectedly fitting or creative malapropism. The autological word "eggcorn" is itself an eggcorn, derived from acorn. Eggcorns often arise as people attempt to make sense of a stock phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them, as for example replacing "Alzheimer's disease" with "old-timers' disease", or William Shakespeare's "to the manner born" with "to the manor born".

The Latin adverb sic inserted after a quotation indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated as found in the source text, including erroneous, archaic, or unusual spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Sic also applies to any surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might be interpreted as an error of transcription.

<i>Fuck</i> English-language profanity

Fuck is an English-language profanity that often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to around 1475. In modern usage, the term fuck and its derivatives are used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an interjection or an adverb. There are many common phrases that employ the word as well as compounds that incorporate it, such as motherfucker and fuck off.

Wop is a pejorative term for Italians or people of Italian descent.

Present-day Irish has numerous loanwords from English. The native term for these is béarlachas, from Béarla, the Irish word for the English language. It is a result of language contact and bilingualism within a society where there is a dominant, superstrate language and a minority substrate language with few or no monolingual speakers and a perceived "lesser" status.

A ned is a hooligan, lout or petty criminal in Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English articles</span> Definite article "the" and indefinite articles "a" and "an" (and sometimes the word "some")

The articles in English are the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an. They are the two most common determiners. The definite article is the default determiner when the speaker believes that the listener knows the identity of a common noun's referent. The indefinite article is the default determiner for other singular, countable, common nouns, while no determiner is the default for other common nouns. Other determiners are used to add semantic information such as amount, proximity, or possession.

Back-formation is the process or result of creating a new word via morphology, typically by removing or substituting actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, in a way that expands the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word. James Murray coined the term back-formation in 1889.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bae (word)</span> Slang English language term of endearment

Bae is a slang term of endearment, primarily used among youth. It came into widespread use around 2013 and 2014 through social media and hip-hop and R&B lyrics. The term originated as an abbreviation of the word baby or babe. It has been suggested that the term originated as an acronym for "before anyone else"; this is unlikely and a false etymology that is probably an example of a backronym.

References

  1. 1 2 "Backronym – Definition of backronym in English by Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries – English. Archived from the original on March 1, 2019.
  2. ↑ "Acronym". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 28 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-15.
  3. ↑ NASA. "RADAR means: Radio Detection and Ranging". Nasa Explores. Archived from the original on 2004-01-28.
  4. ↑ "AmberAdvocate.org: AMBER Alert history" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
  5. ↑ "AMBER Alert – America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response". Amberalert.gov. 2007-11-01. Archived from the original on 27 July 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-08.
  6. ↑ "The Virginia Apgar Papers - Obstetric Anesthesia and a Scorecard for Newborns, 1949-1958". U.S. National Library of Medicine, NIH. Archived from the original on 2009-01-13. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
  7. ↑ Official, ACBL (8 November 2023). "ACBL Battles Online Cheating with EDGAR". Bridge Winners. Archived from the original on November 15, 2023. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  8. 1 2 "The art of the 'backronym'". Roll Call . July 28, 2020. Archived from the original on January 24, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  9. ↑ Sheidlower, Jesse (2009). The F-Word . New York: Oxford University Press US. ISBN   978-0-19-539311-8.
  10. ↑ Quinion, Michael (2005). Port Out, Starboard Home: And Other Language Myths. Penguin. ISBN   0-14-101223-4.; published in the US as Quinion, Michael (2006). Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds . HarperCollins. ISBN   0-06-085153-8.
  11. ↑ "posh, adj. and n.". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009.
  12. ↑ "chav". Wiktionary. The Wikimedia Foundation. 2023.
  13. ↑ Bennett, Joe (30 April 2012). "Everything you ever wanted to know about the word 'chav'". Ideas Lab Predictor Podcast, University of Birmingham. Archived from the original on 2023-09-29. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  14. ↑ Rohrer, Finlo (13 June 2008). "Save our SOS". BBC News Magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-12-02. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  15. ↑ Brunner, Conrad (2004). All Day I Dream About Sport: The Story of the Adidas Brand. Great Brand Stories. London: Cyan. ISBN   1-904879-12-8.
  16. ↑ "The wiki principle". The Economist. 2006-04-20. Archived from the original on 7 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-15.
  17. ↑ "wiki". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 6 December 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-15.
  18. ↑ "The History of Yahoo! - How It All Started..." Yahoo. 2001. Archived from the original on 29 November 2001. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
  19. ↑ Green, Eli (18 January 2023). "Qantas flight QF144 lands safely at Sydney Airport after midair mayday call". news.com.au. Archived from the original on 18 January 2023. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
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