Apronym
An apronym is an acronym which means something appropriate to what it stands for. The word comes from a portmanteau of "apropos acronym".
An apronym is a lot like a backronym; indeed, a backronym could be described as an ex post facto apronym. While backronyms are made from a word or acronym after the fact (e.g. BASIC), an apronym's expansion is the original intended expansion. Some (such as the one given for "rhythm" below) are intended as mnemonics for difficult-to-spell words. Apronyms (backronyms included) can be made from any word, as a form of wordplay. Indeed, the word was coined by Tony McCoy O'Grady, an Irishman who has created over three thousand of them as wordplay; Mr. O'Grady's creations are visible at apronyms.com.
Some apronyms
- BASIC - Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a very basic computer programming language
- CREDIT - Court-Referred Education, Drug Intervention and Treatment, credit given towards completion of the course
- HERO - Highway Emergency Response Operator, 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
- SLAPP - strategic lawsuit against public participation, a slap at whistleblowers
And a few which are backronyms:
- FORD - Fix Or Repair Daily
- FIAT - Fix It Again Tony
- MICROSOFT - Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
- 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!
- TLA - Three Letter Acronym
- ETLA - Extended Three Letter Acronym
- RAID - Redundant Array of INEXPENSIVE Disks (said of an IDE RAID array)
- RHYTHM - Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving (this one is a recursive acronym as well)
External links
- A large list of apronyms may be found at apronyms.com (http://apronyms.com)
- Etymology of apronym (http://apronyms.com/apronyms.html)