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Backronym

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A backronym is an acronym created by back-formation from a word that was not previously an acronym. It may also be an alternative expansion of an existing acronym, often to comical effect. Backronym creation is a common form of wordplay. The word "backronym" is a portmanteau of back and acronym.

Not originally acronyms

  • A3D was originally a designation of a United States Navy strategic bomber. The bomber had a three-man crew, and lacked ejection seats; it was thus jokingly surmised that the name meant "All Three Dead."
  • Acme is the canonical supplier of bizarre, elaborate, and non-functional gadgetry in Warner Brothers' Road Runner cartoons, commonly backronymed to "A (or American) Company Making (or Manufacturing) Everything".
  • Ahimsa is a religious concept which advocates non-violence and a respect for all life; it is Sanskrit for avoidance of himsa, or injury to sentient beings. It is commonly backronymed as "Abstinence from animal products, Harmlessness with reverence for life, Integrity of thought, word, and deed, Mastery over oneself, Service to humanity, nature, and creation, and Advancement of understanding and truth".
  • The Arby's chain of restaurants was named after its founders; in the early 1980s the company launched an advertising campaign that used the backronym "America's Roast Beef, Yes Sir!"
  • Army - Aren't Real Men Yet.
  • CVE is a hull classification symbol for an escort aircraft carrier developed by the U.S. Navy; its crews expanded the designation to "Combustible, Volatile (or Vulnerable) and Expendable".
  • Dynastar - Do You Need A Ski? Try A Rossignol. Dynastar is a French ski manufacturer, now owned by Rossignol.
  • HCl (hydrochloric acid) - Highly Corrosive Liquid.
  • H2SO4 (sulphuric acid) - Hot Hot Searing! Ouch Ouch Ouch Ouch!
  • Marine - Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential; My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment.
  • Navy - Never Again Volunteer Yourself.
  • Pig - When "pig" came into use as derogatory slang for a policeman, some of its targets retaliated by adopting the phrase "Pride, Integrity, Guts".
  • SOS - devised simply as an easy-to-recognise distress signal, but commonly interpreted as Save Our Ship; Save Our Souls.
  • People:
    • Bush - Beat Up Saddam Hussein.
    • Clinton - Come Lewinsky, I Need To Oral Now.
    • Diana - Died In A Nasty Accident.
    • Iacocca - I Am Chairman Of Chrysler Corporation America.
  • Airlines:
    • Alitalia - Airplane Lands In Tokyo And Luggage In Atlanta; Always Late In Take-off, Always Late In Arrival.
    • AWA - America's Worst Airline.
    • BOAC - Better On A Camel; Bit Of A Charlie, Barely Own Any Clocks.
    • Delta - Divert Everyone's Luggage To Atlanta, Don't Ever Leave The Airport.
    • El Al - Every Landing Always Late.
    • Garuda - Good And Reliable Under Dutch Administration.
    • KLM - Keeps Losing Money.
    • Lufthansa - Let Us Find The Hostess, As No Steward Available. A more vulgar version is Let Us Fuck The Hostesses And Not Say Anything.
    • Qantas - Queer And Nice Types of Air Steward; Queens and Nymphomanics Trained As Stewards (originally Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service)
    • Sabena - Such A Bloody Experience, Never Again.
    • Sosa - Stay at hOme, Stay Alive.
    • TACA - Take A Chance Airlines (TACA is also (intentionally) an acronym for Transportes Aéreos Centroamericanos, or Central American Air Transport).
    • TWA - Try Walking Across; Teeny Weeny Airlines; Third World Airlines.
  • Cars:
    • Audi - Accelerates Under Demonic Influence.
    • Chevrolet - Can Hear Every Valve Rattling On Long Extended Trips; Can't Hear Excessive Valve Rap Over Lousy Engine Timing.
    • Chevy - Cheapest Heap Ever Visioned Yet.
    • DeLorean - Don't Ever Lend One Rich Easterner Any Narcotics.
    • Dodge - Drips Oil, Drops Grease, Everywhere.
    • Fiat - Fix It Again, Tony!
    • Ford - also known as First on Rubbish Dump; Found On Road Dead; Fix Or Repair Daily; Fast Only Rolling Downhill; Fucker Only Runs Downhill; or Fuckin' Old Re-built Dodge and originally it was First On Race Day. An example of a reverse backronym is Driver Returning On Foot.
    • Honda - Had One, Never Did Again.
    • Jeep - Junk, Each and Every Part.
    • Lotus - Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious.
    • Pontiac - Poor Old Negro Thinks It's a Cadillac (the word "negro" sometimes replaced by the more offensive term nigger). "Nutjob" would also work.
  • Computing:
    • Ada - A computer programming language named after Ada Lovelace, with humorously intended backronym of Another Damn Acronym.
    • Apple - Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity.
    • Java - Just another vague acronym. Just Another Vain Attempt.
    • Linux - Linux Is Not UniX; LINus' UniX.
    • Microsoft - My Incompetent Computer Randomly Operates Sensibly/Stupidly On Floating Point Tasks; Most Intelligent Customers Realise Our Software Only Fools Teenagers.
    • Macintosh - Most Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs.
    • Pentium - Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Maths.
    • Perl - A high level scripting language common on Unix-like systems, with the common backronym of "Practical Extraction and Report Language", but jokingly referred to as the "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister". Both expansions appear on the man page. More recently, "Parse Every Random Line", in honor of the extensions proposed for Perl 6. Another less colorful one is "Pathetic Excuse for a Real Language".
    • Ping - originally a reference to sonar, but now often said to mean "Packet InterNet Grouper".
    • Prolog - Probably the Language of God.
    • Sid - Still In Development (see Debian)
    • Spam - originally a reference to the Monty Python Spam sketch; has been interpreted as Stupid Person's AdvertiseMent; Stuff Posing As Mail; Send(ing) People Annoying Mail/Messages.
    • TWAIN - Technology Without An Interesting Name.
    • WINDOWS - WINDOWS Is Not a Defined Operating/Working System (it is actually a recursive backronym); Will Install Needless Data On Whole System.

Re-interpreted acronyms

  • CID - Coppers In Disguise; more colourfully, Cunts In Disguise
  • CIE - Cycling Is Easier
  • CIWS, was backronymed as "Christ, It Won't Shoot!"
  • CRTC - Committe for Repression and Thought Control
  • CVS/pharmacy sometimes uses the motto "Convenience, Value, Service"; some customers believe "Customers Victimized Severely" is more appropriate.
  • FBI - Full-Blooded Indian; Fry Bread Inspector; From Big Island; Federal Breast Inspector (many are popular T-shirt slogans)
  • FCC - During the heyday of citizen's band radio, those who operated illegally or on the edge of the law called the Federal Communications Commission the Friendly Candy Company or Fat Chance Charlie.
  • GNVQ - Generally Not Very Qualified. Going Nowhere Very Quickly.
  • Laser - Looking At Source Erases Retina.
  • LISP - Originally LISt Processor, nicknamed List of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses after its syntax involving a lot of parentheses indeed.
  • NASA - Need Another Seven Astrounauts, Never Actually Sure of Anything
  • NASCAR - Non Athletic Sports Created Around Rednecks.
  • NEPA - The Nigerian National Electric Power Authority, which because of its variable quality of service is commonly called Never Expect Power Always, or No Electric Power At all. When the company became a public limited company and changed its formal name to NEPA PLC, the backronym was changed to No Electric Power At all, Please Light Candle.
  • NSA - "No Such Agency".
  • RESPECT The Unity Coalition, a left wing political party in the UK where RESPECT was later explained officially as Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community and Trade Unionism, or among its opponents as Recently Expelled Scottish Politician who Endorses Communist Tyranny [1].
  • UNLV - Unfortunately No Longer Virgins (the official meaning of hiphop group UNLV's name). In the city of Vancouver, WA, this has become "University of Never Leaving Vancouver."
  • UMBC - Sometimes refer to as: Under Major Building Construction or U Must Be Crazy.
  • USMC - Uncle Sam's Misguided Children.
  • TTC - Take The Car
  • Ranks of the Order of St Michael and St George (from bottom to top):
    • CMG - Call Me God.
    • KCMG - Kindly Call Me God.
    • GCMG - God Calls Me God.
  • Cars:
    • BMW - Big Money Waster; Break My Windows; Basic Marin Wheels, Best Machines in the World, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Black Man's Wheels (in UK Afro-Caribbean culture). A reverse backronym is Wanted Mercedes-Benz.
    • Fiat - Fix It Again Tomorrow; Fix It Again Tony; Futile Italian Attempt at Transportation; Fucking Idiot Asshole Towncar or Failure In Automotive Technology
    • Saab - Shit, Another Accessory Broken or Stolen And Always Broken (originally Svenska Automobile AB).
    • SUV - Stupid Ugly Vehicle, Sure to be Under their Vehicle (if in a collision with one).
    • VW - Virtually Worthless.
  • Color television standards:
    • NTSC - Never The Same Color; Never Twice the Same Color; Never Tested Since Christ.
    • PAL - Peace/Perfect At Last.
    • SECAM - System Essentially Contrary to the American Method; Shows Every Colour All Murky.
  • Telephone standards
    • ATM - A Terrible Mistake.
    • ISDN - I Still Don't Need It; It Still Does Nothing; I Smell Dollars Now.
  • Computing:
    • APL - A Perfect Language, A Preposterous Language, Another Programming Language, and others.
    • BASIC - Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control.
    • DOS - Defunct/Defective Operating System.
    • EMACS - Escape, Meta, Alt, Control, Shift; EMACS Makes A Computer Slow; or Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping.
    • GNU - Officially "GNU's Not Unix", but also "GNU Needs Users".
    • IBM - Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; I Blame Microsoft (see OS2); I Buy Macintosh; I've Been Moved (by 1950s and 1960s employees in reference to frequent relocations)
    • IIS - It Isn't Secure.
    • LISP - Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses (alternatively Silly/Stupid Parentheses); Lost In a Sea of Parentheses; Lots of Idiotic, Silly Parentheses
    • MIPS - Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed.
    • NT Not There? Nice Try? Nasty and Troublesome? Not to be Trusted?
    • PCMCIA - People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.
    • RPG - Really Poor Grammar.
    • SCSI - System Can't See It, referring to inherent problems with SCSI drivers under Microsoft Windows
    • XP - Cross out your privacy.

See also

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