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Got a favorite acronym?

dusty

06:45 / 12.02.03

In the spirit of favorite word of the day, what's your favorite acronym, and what does it mean?

dusty

06:49 / 12.02.03

I like Scuba... Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. Cause it's morphed into a non-acronym (?).

The Strobe

07:20 / 12.02.03

Several, but probably the best is TWAIN, the name given to the way scanners interface with computers, etc.

Which stands for Technology Without An Interesting Name.

Brilliant.

Mourne Kransky

07:50 / 12.02.03

I am fond of CBT because my colleagues talk about it all the time. They are, I must presume, talking about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and unaware that, in other contexts beyond their ken, it commonly means Cock and Ball Torture.

Brightens up some otherwise dull meetings to have the alternative connotation pop into my head, accompanied by some inappropriate imagery.

Similarly, it used to amuse me in my past job when people would talk about SM payscales. I thought it was a great idea to get paid for SadoMasochist activities but turned out it meant only the Senior Management pay spine.

Shortfatdyke

07:57 / 12.02.03

Oh come on, I can't believe no-one's nominated The War Against Terrorism yet. TWAT has got to the the best ever....!

William Sack

07:59 / 12.02.03

LOMBARD - loads of money but a real dick.

Bear

08:06 / 12.02.03

Hehe I like the CBT one they use that at work too but for Computer Based Training, I'll get to giggle like a school kid now when managers ask if I've conisdered doing a CBT course.

De Selby

08:11 / 12.02.03

err

TLA - Three Letter Acronym (hyuk)

GNU - Gnu is Not Unix (wooo propellorheads...)

and at one of my old workplaces, we used to have a shared folder full of porn which was called

System Management User Training

hehe

Trijhaos

09:54 / 12.02.03

FUBAR - fucked up beyond all recognition.

Although SNAFU - Situation Normal All Fucked Up is pretty nice too.

Dances with Gophers

10:18 / 12.02.03

I think this is a leg pull but anyway,

ACRONYM - Alphabetically Concatenated Rearrangement of Names Yielding Meaning

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:27 / 12.02.03

It's a leg pull. In general, any etymology citing an acronym is likely to be bollocks.

Ancient Greek again - akros meaning top and onoma meaning "name". So, a name made from taking the tops of the constituent words. Age of reason coining, I think.

Quantum

10:44 / 12.02.03

M.O.O.- Mothers Opposed to the Occult (from Buffy)
SFDyke- did you see the news when it all started, and behind the reader it read The War Against Terror, but the newsreader obscured the words so it obviously spelt TWAT? The next day it had become the war On terror and nobody ever mentioned it again (until now!).

Char Aina

14:19 / 12.02.03

i always liked Scotland Against Drugs.

a scotland with nae drugs is a SAD scotland.

rizla mission

14:41 / 12.02.03

FUGAZI is s'posed to be another Vietnam acronym isn't it?

Anyone know what it stands for (tho I can probably guess the FU bit)?

Hattie's Kitchen

14:51 / 12.02.03

I very much enjoyed my Computer Literacy and Information Technology course I went on in one of my old jobs, more so when I realised that the acronym was CLIT...

Mourne Kransky

14:51 / 12.02.03

According to Acronym Finder, it stands for "fucked up, got ambushed, zipped in", although they don't say f**k on their site, which fairly misses the point of FUBAR, SNAFU, etc.

Matthew Fluxington

14:51 / 12.02.03

Fugazi stands for Fucked Up Gone AWOL Zipped In.

You've gotta love an acronym that contains an acronym, huh?

My favorite acronym is BUSH.

B is for the bravery he's given us
U is for unanimous victory
S is for the strength with which he rules us with
H is for forgotten memories

Bush! Bush! America's greatest president!
Bush! Bush! The best we've ever had!

Matthew Fluxington

14:52 / 12.02.03

Oooooh... you're right, it is "got ambushed".

I feel silly.

But a boy can hope and dream for an acronym with an acronym inside of it, can't he?

Mourne Kransky

14:53 / 12.02.03

And we're careful to talk about CLAIT courses where I work, Hattie. We wouldn't be able to find CLIT...

Hattie's Kitchen

15:14 / 12.02.03

Hoo haa...and I'm pretty sure I once spotted a course titled: Computing and Understanding New Technology...who'd have thunk IT was so dirty?

deja_vroom

16:19 / 12.02.03

One that I always found interesting was M.A.D, Mutual Assured Destruction. In the same spirit, from the pages of Watchmen, C.R.E.E.P., Commitee for RE-Electing the President. Always a classic.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:32 / 12.02.03

I always liked SLIP DUCT, a mnemonic for remembering the symptoms of a fractured bone.

(Swelling, Lameness, Injury, Pain, Deformity, UhhhIcanneverremember, Crepitus*, Tenderness.)

*Crepitus: the harsh, grating sound made when the broken ends of the bone rub together. Bwhahahahaaaaa.

dusty

17:45 / 12.02.03

TINA- There is No Alternative. I think that's a Thatcherism.

Baz Auckland

19:31 / 12.02.03

A few years back the Reform Party decided to try and merge with the Conservative Party. The first choice of name was:

"the Canadian Reform Alliance Party" or CRAP

This lasted about 10min. until someone pointed it out. They're now just the CA.

the Fool

20:28 / 12.02.03

NAFF = Not available for fucking. Apparently its from Polari or the secret gay language invented in the 50s...

Cosmicjamas

20:49 / 12.02.03

I have to agree TWAT is an all-time classic! One I read fairly frequently in womens' health, infertility, how-to-conceive based articles is EWCM, which apparently stands for Egg White Cervical Mucus - yik, eurggh!!

Kit-Cat Club

20:55 / 12.02.03

Apparently, when they were trying to come up with a name for what subsequently became Grampian Television, some enterprising body came up with 'Scottish Highlands and Islands Television'.

Brigade du jour

21:13 / 12.02.03

Yay! Nobody mentioned rubbish heavy metal band from late eighties called GWAR - I'm not sure if this is official but somebody said it stands for God What A Racket.

Can't go wrong with NORWICH - Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home - always felt that the misspelling gave it a certain undereducated charm a la Tommy Steele. Or do you noy spell 'nickers' with a k?

Of course Adrian Edmondson once expanded upon the place names basis with a football riff ... OXFORD UNITED - Oi Xylophone Fancying Old Regina Deserves Unusual Nine Inch Todger Excited Darling? And I believe he made that up on the spot.

The Puck

22:36 / 12.02.03

Sombody pointed out the other day that www. is the only acronym that takes longer to say than the words it shortens. This led to a lenghy argument involving stopwatches and strangers in the pub to be cohersed into being 'independant ajudicators'.

JohnnyYen

23:49 / 12.02.03

I don't think "CREEP" was just in Watchmen, I think they actually existed and turned out to be the guys who arranged the Watergate thing. I could be wrong.

University of Northumbria in Newcastle, that which used to be Newcastle Polytechnic, was apparently going to be called City University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and they didn't realise until the first bunch of letterhead stationery arrived. I'd hate to have been the poor sod who had to break that one to the board.

My personal favourite is RFHTFH - it's applied to a certain kind of large, fearsome girl and I'm not telling what it stands for until tomorrow.

Laughing

00:19 / 13.02.03

Urg, what a terrible thread. I hate acronyms and everything they stand for.

ephemerat

02:21 / 13.02.03

Always liked the standard acronym test to see if your local computer sales-drone was pulling a snow-job in hir patter:

"Does it come with LRF support?"

LRF standing for Little Rubber Feet. Obviously.

The Return Of Rothkoid

03:55 / 13.02.03

There's 273,000 of them here.

Seth

06:24 / 13.02.03

V.I.T.R.I.O.L.

Stands for either:

a) Visita Interiorem Terrae Rectificando Invenies Operae Lapidem

or

b) Visita Interiora Tarrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem

doglikesparky

08:02 / 13.02.03

At my work I have to complete a monthly "Performance Management System" form.
I kid you not...

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