In linguistics, an apronym is a word which as an acronym or backronym has a meaning related to the meaning of the words constituting the acronym or backronym. For example, the acronym for seasonal affective disorder, SAD, reflects the actual meaning of the term by spelling out the English word "sad", referrring to the depression caused by the typical characteristics of winter (lack of light, cloudiness, rain, etc.). Homonyms of a word may also be used to form apronyms. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Backronym and Apronym (Discuss) Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations, such as NATO, laser, and ABC, written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced on the basis of this abbreviated written form. ... A backronym or bacronym is a type of acronym that begins as an ordinary word, and is later interpreted as an acronym. ... In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ... Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, also known as winter depression is an affective, or mood disorder. ... A homonym is one of a group of two or more words that have the same phonetic form (i. ...

Apronyms are a form of word play and may be created for serious purposes or for amusement. Most apronyms are backronyms (ie. reverse or back-formed acronyms), in the sense that they are created from an existing word, or a homophone thereof. Word play is a literary technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work. ... In etymology, the process of back-formation is the creation of a neologism by reinterpreting an earlier word as a compound and removing the spuriously supposed affixes. ...

The word "apronym" is a portmanteau of "apropos acronym" and/or "appropriate acronym" and was coined on the Acronyms Forum in 2003. Look up Portmanteau word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Backronym and Apronym (Discuss) Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations, such as NATO, laser, and ABC, written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced on the basis of this abbreviated written form. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Backronym and Apronym (Discuss) Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations, such as NATO, laser, and ABC, written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced on the basis of this abbreviated written form. ... A neologism (from Greek νεολογισμός νέος [neos] = new; λόγος [logos] = word) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Purposes

Apronyms are created for several purposes.

• Serious purposes such as the name of an organisation or programme. In such cases usually the apronym and its expanded term are chosen together for their aptness to the thing being named. See the example of SAD in the introduction.
• As mnemonics for difficult-to-spell words. For example, a recursive acronym for "rhythm" is Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving.
• In marketing and public relations, as a method of influencing public thought. Examples abound in the names of medical and industry lobby studies, such as "CHEERS", the chemical industry's Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study. Apronyms have also been appearing in government legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) and the FAIR Act (Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act)
• As amusement where the objective is the clever and inventive use of words rather than practical or sensible expanded terms. Irishman Tony McCoy O'Grady and others have created thousands of them as word play on the apronyms.com website. For example, infinity - Increment Numbers Forever - It's Nuts, I Tell You!
• Related to the previous is the amusement of creating jocular, and often also derogatory, terms from names of brands, companies, organisations etc. For example, NASCAR - Non-Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks, or NASA - Need Another Seven Astronauts (after the 1986 crash of the Challenger Space Shuttle).

Apronyms which are not back-formed are usually unintended apronyms. A mnemonic (pronounced in Received Pronunciation) is a memory aid, and most serve as an educational related purpose. ... A recursive acronym (or occasionally recursive initialism) is an abbreviation which refers to itself in the expression for which it stands. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Irish are a northwest European ethnic group who originated in Ireland. ... Shuttle Orbiter Challenger (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-99) was a Space Shuttle orbiter. ...

Some apronyms

• AGE - Advanced glycation endproducts, an apronym which combines the fact of glycosylation of long-lived proteins, e.g. in connective tissue, as well as the accumulation of irreversibly changed proteins with age.
• BAD - Bank Account Transaction Tax in the Australian taxation system.
• BASIC - Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a very basic computer programming language.
• BLOOD - Black Liberation Organization Of Defense, a street gang. Blood is apropos both because of the threat of injury (drawing blood) and the familial bond between members (blood ties).
• BRIT - British Record Industry Trust, organisers of the Brit Awards.
• CAN-SPAM -- Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, 2003 US Congressional act which was intended to reduce deceptiveness in unsolicited commercial email commonly called "spam"; the act is sometimes interpreted as meaning that one can spam.
• CREDIT - Court-Referred Education, Drug Intervention and Treatment, credit given towards completion of the course.
• DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Education, dare to say no.
• GLAAD - Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a reference to the original sense of the word "gay", happy.
• HERO - Highway Emergency Response Operators, a hero to a stranded motorist.
• HOPE - a lottery scholarship for "helping outstanding pupils educationally", giving them hope for a college education.
• MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Driving, mad (angry) about drunk driving.
• MACHO - Massive compact halo object, a macho (big and strong) hypothetical particle in physics. This may also be a backronym, chosen to contrast to the WIMP theory (see below), as one of the other main candidates for "cold dark matter".
• NACE - No a Conducir Ebrio, or (Say) No! to Drunk Driving; a Mexican association whose full name explains its mission and whose acronym actually means "to be born" in Spanish.
• PLATO - Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations, a computer assisted instruction system, playing on the name of the famous philosopher and teacher, Plato.
• SAD - Seasonal affective disorder, a form of clinical depression making people sad, often during cold, dark winter days.
• SADD - Students Against Destructive Decisions (an example of an apronym which is a homophone).
• SAFER Barrier - Steel and Foam Energy Reduction, a safety barrier used in auto racing, primarily in the Indy Racing League and NASCAR. Playing on the fact that it is intended to make racing accidents safer.
• SHAG - Sexual Health Awareness Group, playing on the slang shag for sexual intercourse.
• SLAPP - strategic lawsuit against public participation, a slap at whistleblowers
• WIMP - Weakly interacting massive particle, the theoretical WIMPs interact only via the weak force. See MACHO above.
• WIMP - Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing device, a synonym for graphical user interface sometimes used as an insult by those who prefer a command line interface.
• WPPSS - Washington Public Power Supply System (a project that is still tied to the moniker Whoops when plans to build nuclear power plants in Washington state collapsed in the 1980s).

Another example of a non-English-language apronym is HAMAS, which is the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah, and Arabic for "Islamic Resistance Movement"; "hamas" is the Arabic word for "zeal". It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Glycation#Exogenous. ... BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages. ... An alternate rewrite has been has been proposed. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A gang is a group of individuals who share a common identity and, in current usage, engage in illegal activities. ... Kaiser Chiefs collecting one of their three Brit Awards, 2006 with Vic Reeves. ... The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States of America. ... A typical spam advertisement Spam by e-mail is one type of spamming that involves sending identical or nearly identical messages to thousands (or millions) of recipients. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A credit is a unit that gives weighting to the value, level or time requirements of an academic course. ... Logo of D.A.R.E Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as DARE or D.A.R.E., is an international education program, for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, which seeks to discourage interest in illegal drugs, gangs, and violence. ... The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. ... For other articles with similar names, see Gay (disambiguation). ... The Highway Emergency Response Operators program is a freeway service patrol operated in metro Atlanta by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT). ... From the Greek , in mythology and folklore, a hero (male) or heroine (female). ... Driving is the controlled operation of a vehicle, usually a motor vehicle such as a truck, bus, motorcycle, or car (for bicycles and mounted animals and—at least in the U.K. and U.S.—motorcycles, the corresponding activity is called riding). ... A lottery is a popular form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. ... Scholarship is the pursuit of academic research, whether in the arts and humanities or sciences, and in all such fields means deep mastery of a subject, often through study at institutions of higher education. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... MADD logo Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, is a controversial, non-profit organization in the United States and other countries. ... Drunk driving (drink driving in the UK) or drinking and driving is the act of operating a motor vehicle after having consumed alcohol (i. ... Look up Macho in Wiktionary, the free dictionary This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Massive compact halo object, or MACHO, is a general name for any kind of astronomical body that might explain the apparent presence of dark matter in galaxy halos. ... A backronym or bacronym is a type of acronym that begins as an ordinary word, and is later interpreted as an acronym. ... In astrophysics, WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, are hypothetical particles serving as one possible solution to the dark matter problem. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, also known as winter depression is an affective, or mood disorder. ... Clinical depression (also called severe depressive disorder, major depressive disorder) is a state of intense sadness, melancholia or despair that has advanced to the point of being disruptive to an individuals social functioning and/or activities of daily living. ... In everyday language depression refers to any downturn in mood, which may be relatively transitory and perhaps due to something trivial. ... For other senses of this word, see winter (disambiguation). ... Students Against Drunk Driving is an after-school program aimed at keeping students from drinking alcoholic beverages and then driving, and also keeping them off drugs. ... Homonyms (in Greek homoios = identical and onoma = name) are words which have the same form (orthographic/phonetic) but unrelated meaning. ... The Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier, sometimes called a soft wall, is a new technology found primarily on oval automobile race tracks and intended to make racing accidents safer. ... Indy Racing League Logo The Indy Racing League, better known as IRL, is the sanctioning body of a predominantly American based open-wheel racing series. ... The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States. ... A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) is a form of litigation filed by a large corporation or in some cases an individual plaintiff, to intimidate and silence a less powerful critic by so severely burdening them with the cost of a legal defense that they abandon their criticism. ... A slap broad stroke made with the flat open hand, as opposed to a punch that is made with a closed fist. ... A whistleblower is an employee, former employee, or member of an organization who reports misconduct to people or entities that have the power to take corrective action. ... In astrophysics, WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, are hypothetical particles serving as one possible solution to the dark matter problem. ... This article is about the hypothetical class of particles. ... The weak nuclear force or weak interaction is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. ... Look up Macho in Wiktionary, the free dictionary This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... In human-computer interaction, WIMP stands for window, icon, menu, pointing device, denoting a style of interaction using these elements. ... This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Command prompt. ... Energy Northwest is a municipal corporation in Washington state tasked with building and operating power plants. ... Hamas (Arabic: ‎; acronym: Arabic: ‎, or Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya or Islamic Resistance Movement; the Arabic acronym means zeal) is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist organization that currently forms the majority party of the Palestinian National Authority. ... The Arabic language ( ), or simply Arabic ( ), is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew, Amharic and Aramaic. ...

Humorous apronyms

In some cases, the names of existing entities are targets for subtle changes to obtain a more apt or amusing acronym.

These often are schools, such as:

• Thousand Islands Technical School in Brockville, Ontario (TITS)
• Amherstview Secondary School in Odessa, Ontario (ASS)
• Ossington Old Orchard Public School in Toronto, Ontario (OOOPS)
• British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS — baps is a slang term for breasts)
• College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland (CONDOM)

or the nearly-named: Brockville (2001 population 21,375, metropolitan population 44,741) is located in the Thousand Islands region on the St. ... Amherstview is an unincorporated town in the province of Ontario, located just west of Collins Bay. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Diversity Our Strength Image:Toronto, Ontario Location. ... A pregnant womans breasts. ... The College of Notre Dame of Maryland (CND) is an independent, Catholic- affiliated, liberal arts college located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, that primarily serves women students. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Monument City, Charm City, Mob Town, B-more Motto: Get In On It (formerly The City That Reads and The Greatest City in America; BELIEVE is not the official motto but rather a specific campaign) Location Location of Baltimore in Maryland Coordinates , Government Country State County United... This article does not cite its references or sources. ...

• City University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK (CUNT)

Other humorous apronyms:

• Strategic Automated Command Control System (SACCS)
• Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (LSD)
• Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party (CCRAP)
• Federal Air Transportation Airport Security Service (FATASS)

The same approach may however create names for programmes or administrations which form distasteful or inappropriate apronyms, such as Retire Aged Personnel Early. The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 as part of their first tour of the United States, promoting their first hit single there, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... A song is a relatively short musical composition for the human voice (commonly accompanied by other musical instruments), which features words (lyrics). ... Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a song written mostly by John Lennon (with some material by Paul McCartney) in 1967 and recorded by The Beatles for their album, Sgt. ... The Canadian Alliance (in full, the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance) was a Canadian right_of_centre conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003. ...

Backronyms

And a few which are backronyms:

• APRONYM - A Petite Reminder (Openers Notation) Yields Mnemonic
• INFINITY - Increment Numbers Forever - It's Nuts, I Tell You!
• IRELAND - Independent Republic, English Lodgers Are Nearly Dislodged!
• RHYTHM - Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving (this one is a recursive acronym as well)
• FUDGE - Freeform Universal Do-it-Yourself Gaming Engine
• USA PATRIOT - Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
• WINSTON - We Indians Never Salute To Other Nations

The infinity symbol ∞ in several typefaces The word infinity comes from the Latin infinitas or unboundedness. ... A recursive acronym (or occasionally recursive initialism) is an abbreviation which refers to itself in the expression for which it stands. ... A slice of Russian fudge Fudge is a type of confection, usually extremely rich and often flavored. ... President Bush signs USA PATRIOT Act, October 26, 2001 The USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) (U.S. H.R. 3162, S. 1510, Public Law 107-56) is an act of federal legislation in the United...

External links

• A large list of apronyms may be found at apronyms.com
• Etymology of apronym