Acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in "NATO" ("North Atlantic Treaty Organization"), but sometimes use syllables, as in "Benelux" (short for "Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg"). They can also be a mixture, as in "radar" ("RAdio Detection And Ranging"). Acronyms can be pronounced as words, like "NASA" and "UNESCO"; as individual letters, like "FBI", "TNT", and "ATM"; or as both letters and words, like "JPEG" (pronounced "") and "IUPAC". The broader sense of "acronym"—the meaning of which  includes terms pronounced as letters—is sometimes criticized, but it is the term's original meaning and is in common use. Dictionary and style-guide editors are not in universal agreement on the naming for such abbreviations, and it is a matter of some dispute whether the term "acronym" can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced "as words", nor do these language authorities agree on the correct use of spacing, casing, and punctuation. Abbreviations formed from a string of initials and usually pronounced as individual letters are sometimes more specifically called initialisms or alphabetisms; examples are "FBI  from Federal Bureau of Investigation", and "e.g." from Latin . Etymology. The word "acronym" is formed from the Greek roots "acr-", meaning "height, summit, or tip" and "-onym", meaning "name". This neoclassical compound appears to have originated in German, with attestations for the German form "" appearing as early as 1921. Citations in English date to a 1940 translation of a novel by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger. Nomenclature. Whereas an abbreviation may be any type of shortened form, such as words with the middle omitted (for example, "Rd" for "Road" or "Dr" for "Doctor") or the end truncated (as in "Prof.  for Professor"), an acronym is—in the broad sense—formed from the first letter or first few letters of each important word in a phrase (such as "AIDS", from "acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome", and "scuba" from "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus"). However, this is only a loose rule of thumb, as some acronyms are built in part from the first letters of morphemes (word components; as in the "i" and "d" in "immuno-deficiency") or using a letter from the middle or end of a word, or from only a few key words in a long phrase or name. Less  significant words such as "in", "of", and "the" are usually dropped ("NYT" for "The New York Times", "DMV" for "Department of Motor Vehicles"), but not always ("TICA" for "The International Cat Association", "DoJ" for "Department of Justice"). Abbreviations formed from a string of initials and usually pronounced as individual letters (as in "FBI" from "Federal Bureau of Investigation", and "e.g." from Latin ) are sometimes more specifically called initialisms or alphabetisms. Occasionally, some letter other than the first is chosen, most often when the pronunciation of the name of the letter coincides with the pronunciation of the beginning of the word  (example: "BX" from "base exchange"). Acronyms that are usually pronounced as words, such as "AIDS" and "scuba", are sometimes called word acronyms, to disambiguate them more clearly from initialisms, especially since some users of the term "initialism" use "acronym" in a narrow sense meaning only the type sounded out as letters. Another sub-type of acronym (or a related form, depending upon one's definitions) is the syllabic abbreviation, which is composed specifically of multi-letter syllabic (even multi-syllabic) fragments of the abbreviated words; some examples are "FOREX" from "foreign exchange", and "Interpol" from "international" + "police", though its  full proper name in English is the International Criminal Police Organization). Usually the first syllable (or two) is used from each major component word, but there are exceptions, such as the US Navy term "DESRON" or "DesRon" from "destroyer squadron". There is no special term for abbreviations whose pronunciation involves the combination of letter names with words, or with word-like pronunciations of strings of letters, such as "JPEG" () and "MS-DOS" (). Similarly, there is no unique name for those that are a mixture of syllabic abbreviations and initialisms; these are usually pronounced as words (e.g., "radar" from "radio detection  and ranging", consisting of one syllabic abbreviation and three single letters, and "sonar" from "sound navigation ranging", consisting of two syllabic abbreviations followed by a single acronymic letter for "ranging"); these would generally qualify as word acronyms among those who use that term. There is also some disagreement as to what to call an abbreviation that some speakers pronounce as letters but others pronounce as a word. For example, the terms "URL" and "IRA" (for "individual retirement account") can be pronounced as individual letters: and , respectively; or as a single word: and , respectively. The same character string may be pronounced  differently when the meaning is different; "IRA" is always sounded out as "I-R-A" when standing for "Irish Republican Army". The spelled-out form of an acronym, initialism, or syllabic abbreviation (that is, what that abbreviation stands for) is called its "expansion". Lexicography and style guides. It is an unsettled question in English lexicography and style guides whether it is legitimate to use the word "acronym" to describe forms that use initials but are not pronounced as a word. While there is plenty of evidence that "acronym" is used widely in this way, some sources do not acknowledge this  usage, reserving the term "acronym" only for forms pronounced as a word, and using "initialism" or "abbreviation" for those that are not. Some sources acknowledge the usage, but vary in whether they criticize or forbid it, allow it without comment, or explicitly advocate for it. Some mainstream English dictionaries from across the English-speaking world affirm a sense of "acronym" which does not require being pronounced as a word. American English dictionaries such as "Merriam-Webster", Dictionary.com's "Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary" and the "American Heritage Dictionary" as well as the British "Oxford English Dictionary" and the Australian  Macquarie Dictionary all include a sense in their entries for "acronym" equating it with "initialism", although "The American Heritage Dictionary" criticizes it with the label "usage problem". However, many English language dictionaries, such as the "Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary," "Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary", "Macmillan Dictionary," "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English," "New Oxford American Dictionary," "Webster's New World Dictionary," and "Lexico" from Oxford University Press do not acknowledge such a sense. Most of the dictionary entries and style guide recommendations regarding the term "acronym" through the twentieth century did not explicitly acknowledge or support the expansive sense. The Merriam –Webster's Dictionary of English Usage from 1994 is one of the earliest publications to advocate for the expansive sense, and all the major dictionary editions that include a sense of "acronym" equating it with "initialism" were first published in the twenty-first century. The trend among dictionary editors appears to be towards including a sense defining "acronym" as "initialism": The "Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary" added such a sense in its eleventh edition in 2003, and both the "Oxford English Dictionary" and the "American Heritage Dictionary" added such senses in their 2011 editions. The 1989 edition of the "Oxford English  Dictionary" only included the exclusive sense for "acronym" and its earliest citation was from 1943. In early December 2010, Duke University researcher Stephen Goranson published a citation for "acronym" to the American Dialect Society e-mail discussion list which refers to "PGN" being pronounced "pee-gee-enn," antedating English language usage of the word to 1940. Linguist Ben Zimmer then mentioned this citation in his December 16, 2010 "On Language" column about acronyms in The New York Times Magazine. By 2011, the publication of the third edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" added the expansive sense to its entry for  acronym and included the 1940 citation. As the "Oxford English Dictionary" structures the senses in order of chronological development, it now gives the "initialism" sense first. English language usage and style guides which have entries for "acronym" generally criticize the usage that refers to forms that are not pronounceable words. "Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage" says that "acronym" "denotes abbreviations formed from initial letters of other words and pronounced as a single word, such as "NATO" (as distinct from "B-B-C")" but adds later "In everyday use, "acronym" is often applied to abbreviations that are technically initialisms , since they are pronounced as separate letters." The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges the complexity ("Furthermore, an acronym and initialism are occasionally combined (JPEG), and the line between initialism and acronym is not always clear") but still defines the terms as mutually exclusive. Other guides outright deny any legitimacy to the usage: "Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words" says "Abbreviations that are not pronounced as words (IBM, ABC, NFL) are not acronyms; they are just abbreviations." "Garner's Modern American Usage" says "An acronym is made from the first letters or parts of a compound term. It's read or  spoken as a single word, not letter by letter." "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" says "Unless pronounced as a word, an abbreviation is not an acronym." In contrast, some style guides do support it, whether explicitly or implicitly. The 1994 edition of "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage" defends the usage on the basis of a claim that dictionaries do not make a distinction. The BuzzFeed style guide describes CBS and PBS as "acronyms ending in S". Historical and current use. Acronymy, like retronymy, is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for  which there was little to no naming, conscious attention, or systematic analysis until relatively recent times. Like retronymy, it became much more common in the 20th century than it had formerly been. Ancient examples of acronymy (regardless of whether there was metalanguage at the time to describe it) include the following: During the mid- to late 19th century, an acronym-disseminating trend spread through the American and European business communities: abbreviating corporation names, such as on the sides of railroad cars (e.g., "Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad" → "RF&P"); on the sides of barrels and crates; and on ticker tape  and in the small-print newspaper stock listings that got their data from it (e.g. American Telephone and Telegraph Company → AT&T). Some well-known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include "Nabisco" ("National Biscuit Company"), "Esso" (from "S.O.", from "Standard Oil"), and "Sunoco" ("Sun Oil Company"). Another driver for the adoption of acronyms was modern warfare, with its many highly technical terms. While there is no recorded use of military acronyms in documents dating from the American Civil War (acronyms such as "ANV" for "Army of Northern Virginia" postdate the war itself), they had become somewhat common  in World War I and were very much a part even of the vernacular language of the soldiers during World War II, who themselves were referred to as G.I.s. The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across the whole range of registers is a relatively new linguistic phenomenon in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-20th century. As literacy rates rose, and as advances in science and technology brought with them a constant stream of new (and sometimes more complex) terms and concepts, the practice of abbreviating terms became increasingly convenient. The "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED") records the first printed  use of the word "initialism" as occurring in 1899, but it did not come into general use until 1965, well after "acronym" had become common. In English, acronyms may be a 20th-century phenomenon. Linguist David Wilton in "Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends" claims that "forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth- (and now twenty-first-) century phenomenon. There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is "colinderies" or "colinda", an acronym for the Colonial and Indian Exposition  held in London in that year." However, although acronymic words seem not to have been before the 20th century (as Wilton points out), the is treated as effortlessly understood (and evidently not novel) in an Edgar Allan Poe story of the 1830s, "How to Write a Blackwood Article", which includes the contrived acronym "P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H." Early examples in English. The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and predates modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are: The earliest example of a word derived from an acronym listed by the "OED" is "abjud  (now abjad"), formed from the original first four letters of the Arabic alphabet in the late 18th century. Some acrostics predate this, however, such as the Restoration witticism arranging the names of some members of Charles II's Committee for Foreign Affairs to produce the "CABAL" ministry. Current use. Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms; some well-known examples from the United States are among the "alphabet agencies" (also jokingly referred to as "alphabet soup") created by Franklin D. Roosevelt (also  of course known as "FDR") under the New Deal. Business and industry also are prolific coiners of acronyms. The rapid advance of science and technology in recent centuries seems to be an underlying force driving the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more manageable names. One representative example, from the U.S. Navy, is "COMCRUDESPAC", which stands for "commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific"; it is also seen as "ComCruDesPac". "YABA-compatible" (where "YABA" stands for "yet another bloody acronym") is used to mean that a term's acronym can be pronounced but is not  an offensive word, e.g. "When choosing a new name, be sure it is 'YABA-compatible'." Acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with short message service (SMS), and instant messenger (IM). To fit messages into the 160-character SMS limit, and to save time, acronyms such as "GF" ("girlfriend"), "LOL" ("laughing out loud"), and "DL" ("download" or "down low") have become popular. Some prescriptivists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity, or as failure to use "pure" or "proper" English. Others point out that language change has happened for thousands of years, and argue  that it should be embraced as inevitable, or as innovation that adapts the language to changing circumstances. In this view, the modern practice is just as legitimate as those in "proper" English of the current generation of speakers, such as the abbreviation of corporation names in places with limited writing space (e.g., ticker tape, newspaper column inches). Exact pronunciation of "word acronyms" (those pronounced as words rather than sounded out as individual letters) often vary by speaker population. These may be regional, occupational, or generational differences, or simply a matter of personal preference. For instance, there have been decades of  online debate about how to pronounce GIF ( or ) and BIOS (, , or ). Similarly, some letter-by-letter initialisms may become word acronyms over time, especially in combining forms; "IP" for "Internet Protocol" is generally said as two letters, but "IPsec" for "Internet Protocol Security" may be pronounced as or , with the latter increasing over time (along with variant spellings like "IPSEC" and "Ipsec"). Pronunciation may even vary within a single speaker's vocabulary, depending on narrow contexts. As an example, the database programming language SQL is said as three letters in most cases, but in reference to Microsoft's implementation is  traditionally pronounced the same as the word "sequel". Expansion on first use. In formal writing for a broad audience, the expansion is typically given at the first occurrence of the acronym within a given text, for the benefit of those readers who do not know what it stands for. In addition to expansion at first use, some publications also have a key listing all the acronyms used and what their expansions are. This is a convenience for readers for two reasons. The first is that if they are not reading the entire publication sequentially (which is a common mode of  reading), then they may encounter an acronym without having seen its expansion. Having a key at the start or end of the publication obviates skimming over the text searching for an earlier use to find the expansion. (This is especially important in the print medium, where no search utility is available.) The second reason for the key feature is its pedagogical value in educational works such as textbooks. It gives students a way to review the meanings of the acronyms introduced in a chapter after they have done the line-by-line reading, and also a way to quiz themselves  on the meanings (by covering up the expansion column and recalling the expansions from memory, then checking their answers by uncovering). In addition, this feature enables readers possessing knowledge of the abbreviations not to have to encounter expansions (redundant for such readers). Expansion at first use and the abbreviation-key feature are aids to the reader that originated in the print era, but they are equally useful in print and online. The online medium also allows more aids, such as tooltips, hyperlinks, and rapid search via search engine technology. Jargon. Acronyms often occur in jargon. An acronym may have different  meanings in different areas of industry, writing, and scholarship. The general reason for this is convenience and succinctness for specialists, although it has led some to obfuscate the meaning either intentionally, to deter those without such domain-specific knowledge, or unintentionally, by creating an acronym that already existed. The medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms as their use has evolved from aiding communication to hindering it. This has become such a problem that it is even evaluated at the level of medical academies such as the American Academy of Dermatology. As mnemonics. Acronyms are often  taught as mnemonic devices, for example in physics the colors of the visible spectrum are said to be "ROY G. BIV" ("red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet"). They are also used as mental checklists, for example in aviation: "GUMPS", which is "gas-undercarriage-mixture-propeller-seatbelts". Other examples of mnemonic acronyms are "CAN SLIM", and "PAVPANIC" as well as "PEMDAS". Acronyms as legendary etymology. It is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology, called a folk etymology, for a word. Such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis in historical  linguistics, and are examples of language-related urban legends. For example, "cop" is commonly cited as being derived, it is presumed, from "constable on patrol", and "posh" from "port outward, starboard home". With some of these specious expansions, the "belief" that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue-in-cheek among many citers, as with "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" for "golf", although many other (more credulous) people have uncritically taken it for fact. Taboo words in particular commonly have such false etymologies: "shit" from "ship/store high in transit" or "special high-intensity training" and "fuck" from "for unlawful  carnal knowledge", or "fornication under consent/command of the king". Orthographic styling. Punctuation. Showing the ellipsis of letters. In English, abbreviations have traditionally been written with a full stop/period/point in place of the deleted part to show the ellipsis of letters – although the colon and apostrophe have also had this role – and with a space after full stops (e.g. "A. D."). In the case of most acronyms, each letter is an abbreviation of a separate word and, in theory, should get its own termination mark. Such punctuation is diminishing with the belief that the presence of all-capital  letters is sufficient to indicate that the word is an abbreviation. Ellipsis-is-understood style. Some influential style guides, such as that of the BBC, no longer require punctuation to show ellipsis; some even proscribe it. Larry Trask, American author of "The Penguin Guide to Punctuation", states categorically that, in British English, "this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete." Pronunciation-dependent style and periods. Nevertheless, some influential style guides, many of them American, still require periods in certain instances. For example, "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" recommends following each segment with a period when the  letters are pronounced individually, as in "K.G.B.", but not when pronounced as a word, as in "NATO". The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme. Other conventions. When a multiple-letter abbreviation is formed from a single word, periods are in general not used, although they may be common in informal usage. "TV", for example, may stand for a "single" word ("television" or "transvestite", for instance), and is in general spelled without punctuation (except in the plural). Although "PS" stands for the single word "postscript" (or the Latin "postscriptum"), it is often  spelled with periods ("P.S."). The slash ('/', or "solidus") is sometimes used to separate the letters in an acronym, as in "N/A" ("not applicable, not available") and "c/o" ("care of"). Inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented according to their letter count as a numeronym. For example, "i18n" abbreviates "internationalization", a computer-science term for adapting software for worldwide use. The "18" represents the 18 letters that come between the first and the last in "internationalization". "Localization" can be abbreviated "l10n", "multilingualization" "m17n", and "accessibility" "a11y". In addition to the use of a specific number  replacing that many letters, the more general "x" can be used to replace an unspecified number of letters. Examples include "Crxn" for "crystallization" and the series familiar to physicians for history, diagnosis, and treatment ("hx", "dx", "tx"). Representing plurals and possessives. There is a question about how to pluralize acronyms. Often a writer will add an 's' following an apostrophe, as in "PC's". However, Kate Turabian, writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and  URLs and "Ph.D.'s". The Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association prohibit apostrophes from being used to pluralize acronyms regardless of periods (so "compact discs" would be "CDs" or "C.D.s"), whereas "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" requires an apostrophe when pluralizing all abbreviations regardless of periods (preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's"). Possessive plurals that also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for example, "the C.D.'s' labels" (the labels of the compact discs). In some instances, however, an apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter  of an abbreviation is "S", as in "SOS's" (although abbreviations ending with S can also take "-es", e.g. "SOSes"), or when pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods. A particularly rich source of options arises when the plural of an acronym would normally be indicated in a word other than the final word if spelled out in full. A classic example is "Member of Parliament", which in plural is "Members of Parliament". It is possible then to abbreviate this as "M's P". (or similar), as used by former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley. This usage is less common than  forms with "s" at the end, such as "MPs", and may appear dated or pedantic. In common usage, therefore, "weapons of mass destruction" becomes "WMDs", "prisoners of war" becomes "POWs", and "runs batted in" becomes "RBIs". The argument that acronyms should have no different plural form (for example, "If "D" can stand for "disc", it can also stand for "discs"") is in general disregarded because of the practicality in distinguishing singulars and plurals. This is not the case, however, when the abbreviation is understood to describe a plural noun already: For example, "U.S." is short for "United States", but not  United State. In this case, the options for making a possessive form of an abbreviation that is already in its plural form without a final "s" may seem awkward: for example, "U.S.", "U.S.'s", etc. In such instances, possessive abbreviations are often forgone in favor of simple attributive usage (for example, "the U.S. economy") or expanding the abbreviation to its full form and "then" making the possessive (for example, "the United States' economy"). On the other hand, in speech, the pronunciation "United States's" is sometimes used. Abbreviations that come from single, rather than multiple, words – such as "TV" ("television ) – are usually pluralized without apostrophes (two TVs"); most writers feel that the apostrophe should be reserved for the possessive ("the TV's antenna"). Case. All-caps style. The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms is all-uppercase (all caps), except for those few that have linguistically taken on an identity as regular words, with the acronymous etymology of the words fading into the background of common knowledge, such as has occurred with the words "scuba", "laser", and "radar": these are known as "anacronyms". Anacronyms (note well "-acro-") should not be homophonously confused with anachronyms (note well "-chron-"), which are  a type of misnomer. Small-caps variant. Small caps are sometimes used to make the run of capital letters seem less jarring to the reader. For example, the style of some American publications, including the "Atlantic Monthly" and "USA Today", is to use small caps for acronyms longer than three letters; thus "U.S." and "FDR" in normal caps, but "" in small caps. The acronyms "AD" and "BC" are often smallcapped as well, as in: "From ". Mixed-case variant. Words derived from an acronym by affixing are typically expressed in mixed case, so the root acronym is clear. For example, "pre -WWII politics", "post-NATO world", "DNAase". In some cases a derived acronym may also be expressed in mixed case. For example, "messenger RNA" and "transfer RNA" become "mRNA" and "tRNA". Pronunciation-dependent style and case. Some publications choose to capitalize only the first letter of acronyms, reserving all-caps styling for initialisms, writing the pronounced acronyms "Nato" and "Aids" in mixed case, but the initialisms "USA" and "FBI" in all caps. For example, this is the style used in "The Guardian", and BBC News typically edits to this style (though its official style guide, dating from 2003, still recommends all -caps). The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the capitalization scheme. However, it conflicts with conventional English usage of first-letter upper-casing as a marker of proper names in many cases; e.g. "AIDS" stands for "acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome" which is not a proper name, while "Aids" is in the style of one. Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. "The New York Times", for example, keeps "NATO" in all capitals (while several guides in the British press may render it "Nato"), but uses lower case in "Unicef" (from  United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) because it is more than four letters, and to style it in caps might look ungainly (flirting with the appearance of "shouting capitals"). Numerals and constituent words. While abbreviations typically exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to"), this is not always the case. Sometimes function words are included to make a pronounceable acronym, such as CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). Sometimes the letters representing these words are written in lower case, such as in the cases of "TfL" ("Transport for London") and "LotR" ("Lord of the  Rings"); this usually occurs when the acronym represents a multi-word proper noun. Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal) in names are often represented by digits rather than initial letters, as in "4GL" ("fourth generation language") or "G77" ("Group of 77"). Large numbers may use metric prefixes, as with "Y2K" for "Year 2000" (sometimes written "Y2k", because the SI symbol for 1000 is "k", not "K", which stands for "kelvin", the SI unit for temperature). Exceptions using initials for numbers include "TLA" ("three-letter acronym/abbreviation") and "GoF" ("Gang of Four"). Abbreviations using numbers for other purposes include repetitions, such  as "A2DP" ("Advanced Audio Distribution Profile"), "W3C" ("World Wide Web Consortium"), and "T3" ("Trends, Tips & Tools for Everyday Living"); pronunciation, such as "B2B" ("business to business"); and numeronyms, such as "i18n" ("internationalization"; "18" represents the 18 letters between the initial "i" and the final "n"). Casing of expansions. Authors of expository writing will sometimes capitalize or otherwise distinctively format the initials of the expansion for pedagogical emphasis (for example, writing: "the onset of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)" or "the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)"), but this conflicts with the convention of English orthography, which reserves capitals in the middle  of sentences for proper nouns; and would be rendered as "the onset of congestive heart failure (CHF)" when following the AMA Manual of Style. Changes to (or wordplay on) the expanded meaning. Pseudo-acronyms. Some apparent acronyms or other abbreviations do not stand for anything and cannot be expanded to some meaning. Such pseudo-acronyms may be pronunciation-based, such as "BBQ" ("bee-bee-cue"), for "barbecue", or "K9" ("kay-nine") for "canine". Pseudo-acronyms also frequently develop as "orphan initialisms"; an existing acronym is redefined as a non-acronymous name, severing its link to its previous meaning. For  example, the letters of the "SAT", a US college entrance test originally dubbed "Scholastic Aptitude Test", no longer officially stand for anything. The US-based pro-choice organization "NARAL" is another example of this; in that case, the organization changed their name three times, with the long-form of the name always corresponding to the letters "NARAL", before eventually opting to simply be known by the short-form, without being connected to a long-form. This is common with companies that want to retain brand recognition while moving away from an outdated image: American Telephone and Telegraph became AT&T, "Kentucky  Fried Chicken" became "KFC" to de-emphasize the role of frying in the preparation of its signature dishes, and British Petroleum became BP. "Russia Today" has rebranded itself as "RT". American Movie Classics has simply rebranded itself as AMC. Genzyme Transgenics Corporation became GTC Biotherapeutics, Inc.; The Learning Channel became TLC; and American District Telegraph became simply known as ADT. Pseudo-acronyms may have advantages in international markets: for example, some national affiliates of International Business Machines are legally incorporated with "IBM" in their names (for example, IBM Canada) to avoid translating the full name into local languages. Likewise, UBS  is the name of the merged Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation, and HSBC has replaced the long name Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Some companies which have a name giving a clear indication of their place of origin will choose to use acronyms when expanding to foreign markets: for example, Toronto-Dominion Bank continues to operate under the full name in Canada, but its U.S. subsidiary is known as TD Bank, just as Royal Bank of Canada used its full name in Canada (a constitutional monarchy), but its now-defunct U.S. subsidiary was called RBC Bank. The  India-based JSW Group of companies is another example of the original name (Jindal South West Group) being re-branded into a pseudo-acronym while expanding into other geographical areas in and outside of India. Redundant acronyms and RAS syndrome. Rebranding can lead to redundant acronym syndrome, as when Trustee Savings Bank became TSB Bank, or when Railway Express Agency became REA Express. A few high-tech companies have taken the redundant acronym to the extreme: for example, ISM Information Systems Management Corp. and SHL Systemhouse Ltd. Examples in entertainment include the television shows "" and "Navy: NCIS" ("Navy" was dropped  in the second season), where the redundancy was likely designed to educate new viewers as to what the initials stood for. The same reasoning was in evidence when the Royal Bank of Canada's Canadian operations rebranded to RBC Royal Bank, or when Bank of Montreal rebranded their retail banking subsidiary BMO Bank of Montreal. Another common example is "RAM memory", which is redundant because "RAM" ("random-access memory") includes the initial of the word "memory". "PIN" stands for "personal identification number", obviating the second word in "PIN number"; in this case its retention may be motivated to avoid ambiguity  with the homophonous word "pin". Other examples include "ATM machine", "EAB bank", "HIV virus", Microsoft's NT Technology, and the formerly redundant "SAT test", now simply "SAT Reasoning Test"). TNN (The Nashville/National Network) also renamed itself "The New TNN" for a brief interlude. Simple redefining. Sometimes, the initials continue to stand for an expanded meaning, but the original meaning is simply replaced. Some examples: Backronyms. A "backronym" (or "bacronym") is a phrase that is constructed "after the fact" from a previously existing word. For example, the novelist and critic Anthony Burgess once proposed that the word "book" ought to  stand for "box of organized knowledge". A classic real-world example of this is the name of the predecessor to the Apple Macintosh, the Apple Lisa, which was said to refer to "Local Integrated Software Architecture", but was actually named after Steve Jobs's daughter, born in 1978. Backronyms are oftentimes used for comedic effect. An example of creating a backronym for comedic effect would be in naming a group or organization, the name "A.C.R.O.N.Y.M" stands for (among other things) "a clever regiment of nerdy young men". Contrived acronyms. Acronyms are sometimes contrived, that is, deliberately designed to be especially  apt for the thing being named (by having a dual meaning or by borrowing the positive connotations of an existing word). Some examples of contrived acronyms are "USA PATRIOT", "CAN SPAM", "CAPTCHA" and "ACT UP". The clothing company French Connection began referring to itself as "fcuk", standing for "French Connection United Kingdom". The company then created T-shirts and several advertising campaigns that exploit the acronym's similarity to the taboo word "fuck". The US Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is known for developing contrived acronyms to name projects, including "RESURRECT", "NIRVANA", and "DUDE". In  July 2010, "Wired" magazine reported that DARPA announced programs to "... transform biology from a descriptive to a predictive field of science" named "BATMAN" and "ROBIN" for "Biochronicity and Temporal Mechanisms Arising in Nature" and "Robustness of Biologically-Inspired Networks", a reference to the Batman and Robin comic-book superheroes. The short-form names of clinical trials and other scientific studies constitute a large class of acronyms that includes many contrived examples, as well as many with a partial rather than complete correspondence of letters to expansion components. These trials tend to have full names that are accurately descriptive of what  the trial is about but are thus also too long to serve practically as names within the syntax of a sentence, so a short name is also developed, which can serve as a syntactically useful handle and also provide at least a degree of mnemonic reminder as to the full name. Examples widely known in medicine include the ALLHAT trial (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial) and the CHARM trial (Candesartan in Heart Failure: Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity). The fact that RAS syndrome is often involved, as well as that the letters often  don't entirely match, have sometimes been pointed out by annoyed researchers preoccupied by the idea that because the archetypal form of acronyms originated with one-to-one letter matching, there must be some impropriety in their ever deviating from that form. However, the raison d'être of clinical trial acronyms, as with gene and protein symbols, is simply to have a syntactically usable and easily recalled short name to complement the long name that is often syntactically unusable and not memorized. It is useful for the short name to give a reminder of the long name, which supports the reasonable  censure of "cutesy" examples that provide little to no hint of it. But beyond that reasonably close correspondence, the short name's chief utility is in functioning cognitively as a name, rather than being a cryptic and forgettable string, albeit faithful to the matching of letters. However, other reasonable critiques have been (1) that it is irresponsible to mention trial acronyms without explaining them at least once by providing the long names somewhere in the document, and (2) that the proliferation of trial acronyms has resulted in ambiguity, such as 3 different trials all called ASPECT, which is another reason  why failing to explain them somewhere in the document is irresponsible in scientific communication. At least one study has evaluated the citation impact and other traits of acronym-named trials compared with others, finding both good aspects (mnemonic help, name recall) and potential flaws (connotatively driven bias). Some acronyms are chosen deliberately to avoid a name considered undesirable: For example, "Verliebt in Berlin" ("ViB"), a German telenovela, was first intended to be "" ("All for Love"), but was changed to avoid the resultant acronym "ANAL". Likewise, the Computer Literacy and Internet Technology qualification is known as "CLaIT", rather than "CLIT". In  Canada, the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance (Party) was quickly renamed to the "Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance" when its opponents pointed out that its initials spelled CCRAP (pronounced "see crap"). Two Irish Institutes of Technology (Galway and Tralee) chose different acronyms from other institutes when they were upgraded from Regional Technical colleges. Tralee RTC became the Institute of Technology Tralee (ITT), as opposed to Tralee Institute of Technology (TIT). Galway RTC became Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), as opposed to Galway Institute of Technology (GIT). The charity sports organization Team in Training is known as "TNT" and not "TIT". Technological  Institute of Textile & Sciences, however, is still known as "TITS". George Mason University was planning to name their law school the "Antonin Scalia School of Law" (ASSOL) in honor of the late Antonin Scalia, only to change it to the "Antonin Scalia Law School" later. Macronyms/nested acronyms. A macronym, or nested acronym, is an acronym in which one or more letters stand for acronyms (or abbreviations) themselves. The word "macronym" is a portmanteau of "macro-" and "acronym". Some examples of macronyms are: Some macronyms can be multiply nested: the second-order acronym points to another one further down a  hierarchy. In an informal competition run by the magazine "New Scientist", a fully documented specimen was discovered that may be the most deeply nested of all: RARS is the "Regional ATOVS Retransmission Service"; ATOVS is "Advanced TOVS"; TOVS is "TIROS operational vertical sounder"; and TIROS is "Television infrared observational satellite". Fully expanded, "RARS" might thus become "Regional Advanced Television Infrared Observational Satellite Operational Vertical Sounder Retransmission Service", which would produce the much more unwieldy acronym "RATIOSOVSRS". Another example is VITAL, which expands to "VHDL Initiative Towards ASIC Libraries" (a total of 15 words when fully expanded). However, to say that  RARS stands directly for that string of words, or can be interchanged with it in syntax (in the same way that "CHF" can be usefully interchanged with "congestive heart failure"), is a prescriptive misapprehension rather than a linguistically accurate description; the true nature of such a term is closer to anacronymic than to being interchangeable like simpler acronyms are. The latter are fully reducible in an attempt to "spell everything out and avoid all abbreviations", but the former are irreducible in that respect; they can be annotated with parenthetical explanations, but they cannot be eliminated from speech or writing  in any useful or practical way. Just as the words "laser" and "radar" function as words in syntax and cognition without a need to focus on their acronymic origins, terms such as "RARS" and "CHA2DS2–VASc score" are irreducible in natural language; if they are purged, the form of language that is left may conform to some imposed rule, but it cannot be described as remaining natural. Similarly, protein and gene nomenclature, which uses symbols extensively, includes such terms as the name of the NACHT protein domain, which reflects the symbols of some proteins that contain the domain – NAIP  (NLR family apoptosis inhibitor protein), C2TA (major histocompatibility complex class II transcription activator), HET-E (incompatibility locus protein from "Podospora anserine"), and TP1 (telomerase-associated protein) – but is not syntactically reducible to them. The name is thus itself more symbol than acronym, and its expansion cannot replace it while preserving its function in natural syntax as a name within a clause clearly parsable by human readers or listeners. Recursive acronyms. A special type of macronym, the recursive acronym, has letters whose expansion refers back to the macronym itself. One of the earliest examples appears in "The Hacker's Dictionary  as MUNG, which stands for MUNG Until No Good". Some examples of recursive acronyms are: Non-English languages. Specific languages. Chinese. In English language discussions of languages with syllabic or logographic writing systems (such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), "acronyms" describe the short forms that take selected characters from a multi-character word. For example, in Chinese, "university" (/, literally "great learning") is usually abbreviated simply as ("great") when used with the name of the institute. So "Peking University" () is commonly shortened to ( "north-great") by also only taking the first character of "Peking", the "northern capital" (). In some cases, however , other characters than the first can be selected. For example, the local short form of "Hong Kong University" () uses "Kong" () rather than "Hong". There are also cases where some longer phrases are abbreviated drastically, especially in Chinese politics, where proper nouns were initially translated from Soviet Leninist terms. For instance, the full name of China's highest ruling council, the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), is "Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China" (). The term then reduced the "Communist Party of China" part of its name through acronyms, then the "Standing Committee" part, again through  acronyms, to create "". Alternatively, it omitted the "Communist Party" part altogether, creating "Politburo Standing Committee" (), and eventually just "Standing Committee" (). The PSC's members full designations are "Member of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China" (); this was eventually drastically reduced to simply "Changwei" (), with the term "Ruchang" () used increasingly for officials destined for a future seat on the PSC. In another example, the word "" (National People's Congress) can be broken into four parts: "" = "the whole nation", "" = "people", "" = "representatives", "" = "conference". Yet, in its short form "" (literally "man/people  big"), only the first characters from the second and the fourth parts are selected; the first part ("") and the third part ("") are simply ignored. In describing such abbreviations, the term "initialism" is inapplicable. Many proper nouns become shorter and shorter over time. For example, the CCTV New Year's Gala, whose full name is literally read as "China Central Television Spring Festival Joint Celebration Evening Gala" () was first shortened to "Spring Festival Joint Celebration Evening Gala" (), but eventually referred to as simply "Chunwan" (). Along the same vein, CCTV or "Zhongguo Zhongyang Dianshi Tai" () was reduced to "Yangshi" () in the mid-2000s . Korean. Many aspects of academics in Korea follow similar acronym patterns as Chinese, owing to the two languages' commonalities, like using the word for "big" or "great" i.e. "dae" (), to refer to universities (; "daehak," literally "great learning" although "big school" is an acceptable alternate). They can be interpreted similarly to American university appellations such as, "UPenn" or "Texas Tech." Some acronyms are shortened forms of the school's name, like how Hongik University (, "Hongik Daehakgyo") is shortened to "Hongdae" (, "Hong, the big [school]" or "Hong-U") Other acronyms can refer to the university's main subject, e.g. Korea National University  of Education (, "Hanguk Gyowon Daehakgyo") is shortened to "Gyowondae" (교원대, "Big Ed." or "Ed.-U"). Other schools use a Koreanized version of their English acronym. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (, "Hanguk Gwahak Gisulwon") is referred to as KAIST (, "Kaiseuteu") in both English and Korean. The 3 most prestigious schools in Korea are known as SKY (스카이, "seukai"), combining the first letter of their English names (Seoul National, Korea, and Yonsei Universities). In addition, the College Scholastic Ability Test (, "Daehak Suhang Neungryeok Siheom") is shortened to "Suneung" (, "S.A."). Japanese. The Japanese language makes extensive use of abbreviations, but only  some of these are acronyms. Chinese-based words (Sino-Japanese vocabulary) uses similar acronym formation to Chinese, like for . In some cases alternative pronunciations are used, as in Saikyō for 埼京, from , rather than Saitō. Non-Chinese foreign borrowings (gairaigo) are instead frequently abbreviated as clipped compounds, rather than acronyms, using several initial sounds. This is visible in katakana transcriptions of foreign words, but is also found with native words (written in hiragana). For example, the "Pokémon" media franchise's name originally stood for "pocket monsters" ( [po-ke-tto-mon-su-tā] → ), which is still the long-form of  the name in Japanese, and "wāpuro" stands for "word processor" ( [wā-do-pu-ro-se-ssā]→ ). German. To a greater degree than English does, German tends toward acronyms that use initial syllables rather than initial single letters, although it uses many of the latter type as well. Some examples of the syllabic type are "Gestapo" rather than "GSP" (for ', 'Secret State Police'); ' rather than "FAK" (for ', anti-aircraft gun); ' rather than "KP" (for ', detective division police). The extension of such contraction to a pervasive or whimsical degree has been mockingly labeled ' (for ', strange habit of abbreviating). Examples of include ' (for  ', short in the front, long in the back, i.e., a mullet) and the mocking of Adolf Hitler's title as ' ("", "Greatest General of all Times"). Hebrew. It is common to take more than just one initial letter from each of the words composing the acronym; regardless of this, the abbreviation sign gershayim is always written between the second-last and last letters of the non-inflected form of the acronym, even if by this it separates letters of the same original word. Examples (keep in mind Hebrew reads right-to-left): (for , the United States); (for , the Soviet Union); (for  , Rishon LeZion); (for , the school). An example that takes only the initial letters from its component words is ("Tzahal", for , Israel Defense Forces). In inflected forms the abbreviation sign gershayim remains between the second-last and last letters of the non-inflected form of the acronym (e.g. "report", singular: , plural: ; "squad commander", masculine: , feminine: ). Indonesian. There is also a widespread use of acronyms in Indonesia in every aspect of social life. For example, the "Golkar" political party stands for "Partai Golongan Karya", "Monas" stands for "Monumen Nasional" (National Monument), the "Angkot" public transport stands for "Angkutan Kota" (city public transportation ), "warnet" stands for "warung internet" (internet cafe), and many others. Some acronyms are considered formal (or officially adopted), while many more are considered informal, slang or colloquial. The capital's metropolitan area (Jakarta and its surrounding satellite regions), "Jabodetabek", is another infamous acronym. This stands for "Jakarta-Bogor-Depok-Tangerang-Bekasi". Many highways are also named by the acronym method; e.g. "Jalan Tol" (Toll Road) "Jagorawi" (Jakarta-Bogor-Ciawi) and "Purbaleunyi" (Purwakarta-Bandung-Cileunyi), Joglo Semar (Jogja-solo-semarang). In some languages, especially those that use certain alphabets, many acronyms come from the governmental use, particularly in the military and  law enforcement services. The Indonesian military (TNI – "Tentara Nasional Indonesia") and Indonesian police (POLRI – "Kepolisian Republik Indonesia") are infamous for heavy acronyms use. Examples include the "Kopassus" ("Komando Pasukan Khusus"; Special Forces Command), "Kopaska" ("Komando Pasukan Katak"; Frogmen Command), "Kodim" ("Komando Distrik Militer"; Military District Command – one of the Indonesian army's administrative divisions), "Serka" ("Sersan Kepala"; Head Sergeant), "Akmil" ("Akademi Militer"; Military Academy – in Magelang) and many other terms regarding ranks, units, divisions, procedures, etc. Malay. Although not as common as in Indonesian, a number of Malay words are formed by merging two words, such as "tadika" from "taman  didikan kanak-kanak" (kindergarten) and "pawagam" from "panggung wayang gambar." This, however, has been less prevalent in the modern era, in contrary to Indonesian. It is still often for names such as organisation names, among the most famous being MARA from Majlis Amanah Rakyat (People's Trust Council,) a government agency in Malaysia. Some acronyms are developed from the Jawi (Malay in Arabic script) spelling of the name and may not reflect its Latin counterpart such as PAS from Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (Malaysian Islamic Party) which originated from the Jawi acronym ڤاس from ڤرتي إسلام سمليسيا, with the same  pronunciation, since the first letter of the word "Islam" in Jawi uses the letter Aleph, which is pronounced like the letter A when in such position as in the acronym. Rules in writing initialisms in Malay differ based on its script. In its Latin form, the initialism would be spelt much like in English, using capitals written without any spacing, such as TNB for Tenaga Nasional Berhad. In Jawi, however, the way initialisms are different depending on the source language. For Malay initialisms, the initial Jawi letters would be written separated by a period such as .د.ب.ڤ for  ديوان بهاس دان ڤوستاک. If the initialism is from a different language, however, it would be written by transliterating each letter from the original language, such as عيم.سي.عيم.سي. for MCMC, or .الفا.ڤي.ثيتا for Α.Π.Θ. Russian. Acronyms that use parts of words (not necessarily syllables) are commonplace in Russian as well, e.g. (Gazprom), for (', "gas industry"). There are also initialisms, such as СМИ ("SMI", for ', "means of mass informing", i.e. ГУЛаг (GULag) combines two initials and three letters of the final word: it stands for (", "Chief Administration of Camps"). Historically, "OTMA" was an acronym sometimes used by the daughters  of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his consort, Alexandra Feodorovna, as a group nickname for themselves, built from the first letter of each girl's name in the order of their births: "Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia". Swahili. In Swahili, acronyms are common for naming organizations such as "TUKI", which stands for " (the Institute for Swahili Research). Multiple initial letters (often the initial syllable of words) are often drawn together, as seen more in some languages than others. Vietnamese. In Vietnamese, which has an abundance of compound words, initialisms are very commonly used for both proper and common nouns . Examples include "TP.HCM" (', Ho Chi Minh City), "THPT" (', high school), "CLB" (', club), "CSDL" (', database), "NXB" (', publisher), "ÔBACE" (', a general form of address), and "CTTĐVN" (', Vietnamese Martyrs). Longer examples include "CHXHCNVN" (', Socialist Republic of Vietnam) and "MTDTGPMNVN" ("codice_1", Viet Cong). Long initialisms have become widespread in legal contexts in Vietnam, for example . It is also common for a writer to coin an ad hoc initialism for repeated use in an article. Each letter in an initialism corresponds to one morpheme, that is, one syllable. When the first letter of a syllable has a tone mark or other diacritic, the diacritic may  be omitted from the initialism, for example "ĐNA" or "ĐNÁ" for "" (Southeast Asia) and "LMCA" or "LMCÂ" for "Liên minh châu Âu" (European Union). The letter "Ư" is often replaced by "W" in initialisms to avoid confusion with "U", for example "UBTWMTTQVN" or "UBTƯMTTQVN" for "Ủy ban Trung ương Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam" (Central Committee of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front). Initialisms are purely a written convenience, being pronounced the same way as their expansions. As the names of many Vietnamese letters are disyllabic, it would be less convenient to pronounce an initialism by its individual letters. Acronyms pronounced  as words are rare in Vietnamese, occurring when an acronym itself is borrowed from another language. Examples include ' (), a respelling of the French acronym "SIDA" (AIDS); ' (), a literal reading of the English initialism for Voice of America; and "NASA" (), borrowed directly from the English acronym. As in Chinese, many compound words can be shortened to the first syllable when forming a longer word. For example, the term Việt Cộng is derived from the first syllables of "Việt Nam" (Vietnam) and "Cộng sản" (communist). This mechanism is limited to Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. Unlike with Chinese, such clipped compounds are considered to  be portmanteau words or blend words rather than acronyms or initialisms, because the Vietnamese alphabet still requires each component word to be written as more than one character. General grammatical considerations. Declension. In languages where nouns are declined, various methods are used. An example is Finnish, where a colon is used to separate inflection from the letters: The process above is similar to the way that hyphens are used for clarity in English when prefixes are added to acronyms: thus "pre-NATO policy" (rather than "preNATO"). Lenition. In languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Irish, where lenition (initial consonant mutation ) is commonplace, acronyms must also be modified in situations where case and context dictate it. In the case of Scottish Gaelic, a lower-case "h" is often added after the initial consonant; for example, "BBC Scotland" in the genitive case would be written as , with the acronym pronounced "VBC". Likewise, the Gaelic acronym for 'television' is , pronounced "TV", as in English.