TASK DEFINITION: Generate the answer for a given question. The question requires common knowledge of English. Make sure that the answer is in detail, long, consistent with the context, and requires general knowledge of English. To be less repetitive, please vary your language for each question. Give a proper explanation to answer, and if necessary, provide the definition of various terms. And conclude your answer if it's long. If you have used other resources (e.g., Merriam Webster's.) to answer the question, include citations in your answer. You don't need to paraphrase the context of your resources, but make sure that your answer is consistent and complete.
PROBLEM: The first time I encountered the word 'gondola' was as a 20 year old on her first visit to Venice. Gondolas, to me, were written in my memory as a flat, fancy, romantic (and expensive to ride) boat structures that traverse the canals of Venice, Italy. But soon thereafter, on my first visit to Banff, Canada (Canadian Rockies) -- Gondolas was also the term for ski-like lifts (enclosed from the elements) to get from the bottom to the top of steep mountains (vice versa). What is the etymology of 'gondola'? And how did it develop to reference two completely different transportation devices? One on water, the other on mountains? What is the relationship besides their obvious transportation connect?.

SOLUTION: Some of the successive meanings given in the OED are: 1a. ' A light flat-bottomed boat or skiff in use on the Venetian canals, having a cabin amidships and rising to a sharp point at either end; it is usually propelled by one man at the stern with a single oar.' U.S. A large flat-bottomed river boat of light build; a lighter; used also as a gun-boat. 4a. '= gondola-car n. U.S.', which is glossed as 'U.S. a railway car having a platform body with low sides.' 4b. 'An elongated car attached to the under side of a dirigible balloon or airship. [German, Dutch gondel.] Also transf., applied to a structure that resembles such a car in its purpose and mode of attachment.' 4c. 'The car attached to a ski-lift. Also gondola lift.' So the crucial step appears to be the cabin of an airship (which is long and low), and then a cabin suspended from something. This kind of semantic drift is very common.

PROBLEM: If a proper noun includes the word 'the' and we want to refer to it using the definite article, should 'the' appear twice in succession? For example: 'Can you pass me The Who CD?' vs. 'can you pass me the The Who CD?' 'The US Government passed The Hague Act' vs. 'The US Government passed the The Hague Act?'. (this example inspired by a comment to this answer). To me the first versions seem incorrect, but the second versions sound very awkward.

SOLUTION: I provided a long answer to the question 'Capitalisation in texts where the title is also a concept that is referred to within the text?' a while ago. Part of my answer to that question is directly relevant to this one. In the following quotation, The Boss is a nickname commonly used for the singer Bruce Springsteen. Sometimes what sounds natural can supersede what is technically correct from a syntactical point of view. For example: ✔ Those are the Gucci shoes I was talking about. Here, we have a proper noun acting to modify a common noun. But while the next sentence follows the same syntactical rule, it doesn't look right: ? That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about. Even though the second article is not actually an article per se (it's part of a name), it's not possible to look at the duplication and think it's appropriate. If something is technically correct, but is still incredibly awkward, it's better to rephrase it. In this case, we could omit one or the other word (knowing the meaning would be understood anyway) or we could actually restructure the sentence so it's not awkward to start with: ✔ That is the ticket to The Boss I was talking about. ✔ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about. ✔ That is the The Boss ticket I was talking about. In the last two sentences, we know perfectly well which words should be capitalizedit's just that we're choosing to omit one or the other for the sake of comprehension. (And which we omit would be a matter of style or personal choice.)

PROBLEM: Are Backronym and Acronym same? I don't understand the difference between these two terms.

SOLUTION:
An acronym is a word formed by the initial letters of other words, such as Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Note that this is different to an initialism where the initial letters are spelled out, as in BBC for example. A backronym is where the word comes first, and the initial letters are made to fit the word. An example is Alex the parrot (Wikipedia) who to date is the only non-human to spontaneously use language and throws doubt on the notion that a large brain is a prerequisite for language. The name Alex was subsequently said to be 'Avian Language Experiment', which then became 'Avian Learning Experiment. As this was decided (or at least stated) after naming the bird, it is a backronym. Another example would be the USA PATRIOT Act, where : The title of the act is a ten-letter backronym (USA PATRIOT) that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Wikipedia)