We have words that we use everyday, and think of them as simply another word; but in truth, they are an acronym that we say as a word rather than spelling out the acronym letters. This has become extremely commonplace in the United States; but other countries also use acronyms as words. One of the most common ones we use would have to be TV. Most people don't even say television anymore; or even stop to think what the letters actually stand for. Some of the other common ones would be RADAR, SONAR. MO-DEM, AC, and ID. We talk about an ATM, and know we need a PIN number. If we get a DUI and resist arrest , then the SWAT team might be sent after us. Some of these words, we pronounce like they are an actual word, like radar, and some we just say the initials, like TV or AC. Some of them , we have used for so long now, we think of them as actual words. I had no idea that a modem wasn't a "real" word, until I happened to be reading a book that explained that it actually stood for "modulator-demodulator". Here is a list of some of the common acronyms that we use, and also what they stand for. http://www.acronym-guide.com
Although I have downloaded many PDF files, I never knew what those initials meant. I just found out from that acronym guide that PDF = Portable Document Format (created by Adobe Acrobat) So many tech acronyms have now entered into every day language. For example it's not unusual to hear people discussing the future of AI - artificial intelligence. And most people watch TV rather than seeing what's on 'the television'.
It is interesting how these acronyms become common in our day to day language. When I use tech tems talking to someone who does not normally use tech terms they look at me like I have lost my mind. When you are taling to another tech the conversation just gets more and more techie. I have a friend that can barely turn her tablet on, when I start to talk techie she just glazes over.
Well a classic acronym, is USA. No one says, I am going on vacation to The United States of America. It is interesting, how by virtue of use, these expressions have become so commonplace. Thanks for that post.
I like the old ones, like ASAP (as soon as possible), FUBAR (fudged up beyond all repair), SWAG (silly wild-a** guess), SNAFU (situation normal, all fudged up), FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), PFM (pure friggin' magic), RTFM (read the manual), FNG (friggin' new guy), BMOC (big man on campus). Sorry about the bad words, but the old ones where usually made up by service men, expressing their frustrations, so.... Anyone else??
Here’s one that you have to go through often, when registering for an account on a website, including this one. That is the Captcha. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Remember Care packages? Well, they weren’t named that as an indication of how much we cared about one another. It was an acronym for the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere. Humvee was formed through a vague attempt at pronouncing a string of letters that stood for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle. The Sim card in your phone is your Subscriber Identification Module card.
Your ZIP code is actually your Zone Improvement Plan code. IKEA stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd, named for the founder’s initials and his hometown. Nabisco stands for National Biscuit Company.
here in the UK our ''Zip code''..is Called our Post ( postal) Code...makes more sense to me... When I was a kid we didn't have any type of area codes except on phones, and when I read American comics, and I was always entirely intrigued about the zip code on the address at the bottom of the back page...never knew what it meant until I was an adult....no Mr google in those days..