Phone texting rapidly expanded acronym creation and use from the technical world into the mainstream. “Influencers” now create acronyms for the least little thing. Many “stick” and come into wider use. Acronyms may also evolve.
Words are a form of data made up of character strings (e. g. “name”). Words in turn may be grouped into phrases or multi-word labels (e. g. “Republican in Name Only”). Acronyms are words created from the first letters of words in a multi-word label or phrase (e. g. “RINO”). Therefore, acronyms condense the data from multiple words into a single word.
One of my favorite acronyms is SPEBSQSA, which stands for the “Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America”. As you see with these examples, articles, prepositions, etc. are often but not always left out of acronyms.
Acronyms efficiently summarize a string of words, and so save space in text and time in speaking. However, a listener or reader must know what the acronym stands for! Years of working for NASA and the Navy made me very familiar with acronyms and enabled me to decode unfamiliar ones. This comes in handy with the explosion of acronyms in the age of texting.
Acronyms can mutate, in that a single “source” acronym may be adapted to new meanings if it includes a common and broadly applicable phrase. This work starts at the top with RINO and proceeds to other labels or roles “in name only”: American, president, taxpayer, Christian, husband.
Make up your own acronyms! It’s fun and useful, and who knows, you may come up with some that go big.
REFERENCES