Let's all learn what an acronym is

Snash said:
Snipped - is that one?
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Nope, it's another case of 'folk' etymology where a semi plausible set of words are suggested as creating the acronym, completely ignoring that it probably has roots simply in another language (in this case German appears most likely). It also ignores that abbreviating "see" to "c" is a relatively recent phenomenon which is linked to texting and the word referred to is much older than that.
 
BMW: Beautiful Masterpiece on Wheels
BMW: Beautiful Mechanical Wonder

BMW: Big Money Waste
BMW: Brutal Money Waster
BMW: Big Money Waster
BMW: Bavarian Marriage Wrecker
BMW: Big Manly Willy

or

BMW: Brings More Women

Or even

BMW: Bavarian Motor Works
 
BMW reminded me that I thought Audi was one. Apparently not! :

Wikipedia said:
[When forced out of his own initial company after doing things with knockwursts and strudels] August Horch was barred from using his own family name in his new car business, so he called a meeting at the apartment of Franz Fikentscher to come up with a new name for his company. During this meeting Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until he finally blurted out, "Father – audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?". "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "listen", which is "Audi" in Latin...It is sometimes (incorrectly) believed that AUDI is a backronym (a reversed acronym) which stands for "Auto Union Deutschland Ingolstadt".
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi
 
Nahema said:
What about the F-word? Fornication Under Consent of the King?
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That's just yet another false etymology, and a ludicrously implausible one at that. It's utterly ridiculous.

As far as I know, the earliest acronym commonly used as a word in English is RADAR. If you see an acronym given as the etymology for a word earlier than the 1930s, it's almost certainly wrong.

And yes, that include posh, which is not an acronym.
 
Magic_x_uk said:
GOLF
Gentleman Only Ladies Forbidden
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No.

People make this stuff up all day. Some of it sticks in the minds of people who never think to check it.

The true etymology of 'golf' is uncertain, but it's most likely from the Scottish word 'gowf', meaning 'to hit', or possibly 'colf', meaning 'a stick', from a European language that I can't remember. Danish, maybe. EDIT: Or Dutch. They both start with a 'D', close enough :)
 
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semi-pro waster said:
Nope, it's another case of 'folk' etymology where a semi plausible set of words are suggested as creating the acronym, completely ignoring that it probably has roots simply in another language (in this case German appears most likely). It also ignores that abbreviating "see" to "c" is a relatively recent phenomenon which is linked to texting and the word referred to is much older than that.
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Thanks for clearing that one up.:p
 
yantorsen said:
what are they if you say PLC as Pul-ck

or HTML as Hu-tum-il
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A grievous abuse of the English language, now please never sully it again so. :p

Nope, attempting to say them out loud following your pronunciation guides doesn't make it any better, in fact it makes it worse as I can't understand how you would actually say them and not think "this is completely and utterly wrong on every level".
 
semi-pro waster said:
A grievous abuse of the English language, now please never sully it again so. :p

Nope, attempting to say them out loud following your pronunciation guides doesn't make it any better, in fact it makes it worse as I can't understand how you would actually say them and not think "this is completely and utterly wrong on every level".
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can you honestly tell me you have never been tempted to say puc-duv-du instead of PC-DVD?
 
From work: FAP = First Application

One I came across before, not sure if its been mentioned:

FART = Fatal Accident Reconstruction Team
 
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