Recently in the Acronyms Category

Quite a while back, I read a story (perhaps in the New Yorker or some such?) in which one character would write letters to another, and would sign off with this:

S.L.S.O.C.Y.K.

The story explained that the initials stood for "So Long, Sweet One; Consider Yourself Kissed."

I found that charming. I tried using it as a signoff in letters to certain people, but they never found it nearly as charming as I did. (Though it did spark a response from someone I'm not sure would want to be named here so I'll leave it anonymous: LYMTACS (pronounced "lime tacks"), for "Love You More Than Acronyms Can Say.")

. . . I must digress from signoffs for a moment to talk about related acronyms. I've heard of envelopes on which people have written SWAK, for "Sealed With a Kiss"; a friend of mine once wrote, on an envelope to me, "Sealed with a lick, 'cause a kiss won't stick," which made me laugh. A quick web search suggests that that's sometimes abbreviated SWALCAKWS.

Anyway. The signoff bit in a letter, just before the signature, is known as the complimentary close. I have always been fond of old-style formal complimentary closes, such as "I am, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant," especially when "obedient" is abbreviated to "obt." I've also seen abbreviations of a whole phrase, such as "yours, etc" or (as noted in Wikipedia) "I am, etc." An abbreviation for that phrase that I haven't seen before, as shown in that Wikipedia article, is "YOS."

There are lots of other common closes, of course. In English, many of them revolve around the words "yours" or "best" or "regards," though words like "sincerely" also figure prominently; also "love."

And in less formal notes to certain people, one might use a phrase like "kisses" or "xo."

Was thinking about this stuff this evening, and noticed that I'd never posted anything about SLSOCYK; in fact, a quick web search suggests that nobody has ever posted anything about that valediction. If any of you happen to know the title or author of the story that used the phrase, let me know.

Regardless (now there's a signoff), I'm now curious about what kinds of complimentary closes other people use. Do y'all use them at all? (I realize they're not common in email, but I do use them in some email contexts.) If so, which ones do you use?

Just happened across the Greek phrase "Μολων λαβε" (not sure how to get the accent marks to appear in HTML), often transliterated "molon labe." Apparently it was King Leonidas's response when the Persians demanded the Spartans' weapons: "Come and take them!"

Wikipedia adds:

It corresponds roughly to the modern equivalent English phrase "over my dead body," "bring it on" or, most closely, "come and get it."

I would not have expected an ancient Greek phrase to appear on a T-shirt at a Tea Party rally, but that's just where I saw this (in a photo). It turns out that American gun-rights advocates have adopted the phrase as a challenge to those they see as trying to take their guns away.

That Wikipedia page has a bunch of other interesting stuff about the use of the phrase at various historical moments.

And on a side note, it introduced me to an acronym I'd never encountered before: RKBA. From context, at first I thought it must stand for "Royal [something] [something] Association," but no: it's "Right to Keep and Bear Arms."

EDNOS turns out to be an acronym for Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.

Which isn't at all unusual in itself, but I'm kind of amused by the idea that someone can be diagnosed as having EDNOS.

(Eating disorders themselves are obviously no laughing matter. What I'm amused by is the phrasing.)

I was also amused by the Guardian's attempted acronym expansion. I first encountered the term in an article about orthorexia nervosa. (The article reads kind of like a parody, but it appears to be serious.) It says:

Until a few years ago, there were so few sufferers that doctors usually included them under the catch-all label of "Ednos"—eating disorders not otherwise recognised.

At which I thought, wait, shouldn't that be "Ednor"? But then Wikipedia cleared it up; I assume the article's author just got confused.

Turns out that quango, also spelled qango, is an acronym for "quasi non-governmental organization" or "quasi-autonomous NGO." Looks like the term is fairly common in the UK and elsewhere, but I don't think I had ever heard it before.

A few weeks back, I heard a country song on the radio in which the singer sang:

I smell T.R.O, you B.L.E.

I puzzled for a while over what T.R.O. and B.L.E. were before I got it.

It may be more obvious in print, but if you don't see it, say it aloud a couple of times. And/or Google [Travis Tritt T.R.O.], which will also reveal the name of the song.

On a video about an explosion, I heard an announcer use a term that sounded like "blevvies." I got curious and Googled it; turns out it's an acronym. According to Wikipedia:

BLEVE, pronounced [...] "blevvy"[...], is an acronym for "boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion". This is a type of explosion that can occur when a vessel containing a pressurized liquid is ruptured.

Apparently the term "UFO" is out; in its place, "UAP," for "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena," is gaining popularity.

Jon Hilkevitch of the Chicago Tribune says:

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker[....]

--"In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?", by Jon Hilkevitch

But other sources suggest that the "UAP" term is actually an older term, and TSOR hasn't led me to anything definitive one way or t'other. Any thoughts?

I always vaguely wondered how "lysergic acid diethylamide" got abbreviated as "LSD." I think I figured (or had been told) that the S came from "lySergic," but that didn't make much sense.

Turns out, according to Wikipedia, the acronym is from the German name: "Lysergsäure-diethylamid," where the S is for "säure."