{"id":2612,"date":"1998-03-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1998-03-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1998\/03\/01\/iitywybad\/"},"modified":"2018-01-14T20:08:26","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T04:08:26","slug":"iitywybad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1998\/03\/01\/iitywybad\/","title":{"rendered":"ii: TLAs, PDQ!"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n

Recall from an earlier column<\/a> that an initialism is an acronym if it forms a pronounceable word. It's not always obvious, though, what abbreviations are pronounceable. Take \"IITYWYBAD?\", for instance, a term displayed on a sign in a diner in The Grapes of Wrath<\/cite>. You certainly wouldn't want to have to say each letter, but how do you pronounce it? I'm told it's pronounced \/,It i 'waI b&d\/, but I'm not entirely sure.<\/p>\r\n

As for its meaning, an example of usage is probably best:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Tara<\/b>: What does \"IITYWYBAD?\" mean?<\/p>\r\n

Uriah<\/b>: If I tell you, will you buy a drink?<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

An intentionally misleading answer, in that it doesn't appear to be an answer. Reminds me a little of the old \"Who's on first?\" routine, and the game of questions played by the title characters in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<\/cite>.<\/p>\r\n

Speaking of enigmatic characters, the protagonist of The Tattooed Potato, and Other Clues<\/cite> spends some time puzzling over the identity of the mysterious Roy G. Biv\u2014who of course turns out to be a mnemonic for the colors of the visible spectrum (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet). I've also seen that mnemonic given as VIBGYOR, which seems to me far less memorable.<\/p>\r\n

Speaking of acronymic names (and how about them segues?): in Godel, Escher, Bach<\/cite>, Douglas Hofstadter discusses recursive acronyms; among others, he includes an infinite progression of djinns, each more powerful than the one below it, collectively referred to as GOD, an acronym for God Over Djinn. A CTY alum named Bram (presumably a Hofstadter fan) used to claim that his name stood for BRAM Recursive Acronym Man. I always wanted to develop a recursive acronym with the acronym part at the end, but the closest I've come up with is the homophonic phrase \"Why, O YOU?\"<\/p>\r\n

Speaking of TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms), I'm told that the US military requires (or at least used to require) that soldiers have a middle initial. If they didn't, they were assigned a set of middle initials: N. M. I., for No Middle Initial. (Jim Moskowitz once assigned himself the middle initials T. M. I., for Three Middle Initials.) (And isn't \"middle initial\" an oxymoron?)<\/p>\r\n

And finally, Joe Marriott writes to ask for help filling out the following table:<\/p>\r\n
A<\/td>\r\n AM<\/td>\r\n ABA<\/td>\r\n AARP<\/td>\r\n ASPCA<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
B<\/td>\r\n BO<\/td>\r\n BBB<\/td>\r\n BMOC<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
C<\/td>\r\n CD<\/td>\r\n CIA<\/td>\r\n CCCP<\/td>\r\n COMEX<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
D<\/td>\r\n DT<\/td>\r\n DAR<\/td>\r\n DTMF<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
E<\/td>\r\n ER<\/td>\r\n ETA<\/td>\r\n ESPN<\/td>\r\n EPROM<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
F<\/td>\r\n FM<\/td>\r\n FBI<\/td>\r\n FDIC<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
G<\/td>\r\n GE<\/td>\r\n GNP<\/td>\r\n GATT<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
H<\/td>\r\n HO<\/td>\r\n HMS<\/td>\r\n HDTV<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
I<\/td>\r\n IV<\/td>\r\n IRS<\/td>\r\n IEEE<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
J<\/td>\r\n JB<\/td>\r\n JFK<\/td>\r\n \r\n<\/tr>
K<\/td>\r\n KO<\/td>\r\n \r\n KAOS<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
L<\/td>\r\n LP<\/td>\r\n LED<\/td>\r\n LAPD<\/td>\r\n LMNOP<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
M<\/td>\r\n MD<\/td>\r\n MTA<\/td>\r\n MTBF<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
N<\/td>\r\n NG<\/td>\r\n NBA<\/td>\r\n NRBQ<\/td>\r\n NAACP<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
O<\/td>\r\n OK<\/td>\r\n OED<\/td>\r\n OPEC<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
P<\/td>\r\n PU<\/td>\r\n PDQ<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
Q<\/td>\r\n QT<\/td>\r\n QED<\/td>\r\n \r\n QBVII<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
R<\/td>\r\n RV<\/td>\r\n ROM<\/td>\r\n RTFM<\/td>\r\n RADAR<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
S<\/td>\r\n SJ<\/td>\r\n SRO<\/td>\r\n SPQR<\/td>\r\n SONAR<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
T<\/td>\r\n TB<\/td>\r\n TBD<\/td>\r\n TGIF<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
U<\/td>\r\n UV<\/td>\r\n UHF<\/td>\r\n USMC<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
V<\/td>\r\n VA<\/td>\r\n VHS<\/td>\r\n VSOP<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
W<\/td>\r\n WB<\/td>\r\n WPA<\/td>\r\n WWWF<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
X<\/td>\r\n XL<\/td>\r\n XYZ<\/td>\r\n XTRA<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
Y<\/td>\r\n \r\n \r\n YMCA<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>
Z<\/td>\r\n \r\n ZPG<\/td>\r\n<\/tr><\/table>

He notes that the WWWF was the predecessor to the WWF. I'm not sure what all of the above items mean, but I think most of them should be pretty obvious. Anyone want to fill in the blanks? (Preferably with common abbreviations, acronyms, or letter sequences.)<\/p>\r\n

...But enough. As David \"Duck\" Coupe once wrote, \"Too many GDAs! (God-Damned Acronyms.)\"<\/p>\r\n

Reader comments and addenda page<\/a>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-llowercase-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3332,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions\/3332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}