Newley Purnell

Dispatches from Bangkok

What’s a Backronym?

without comments

I recently stumbled across this remarkably complex Wikipedia entry for “backronym”:

A backronym or bacronym is a portmanteau of backward and acronym[1] coined in 1983.[2][3] It usually refers to a phrase that is constructed backwards from the phrase’s abbreviation, the abbreviation being an initialism or acronym. Sometimes backronym refers to the initialism or acronym itself,[4] but usually in those cases, it is a “replacement” backronym, the abbreviation already having an associated phrase. When the backronym phrase becomes more popular than the original, the word becomes an anacronym.[5]

Got that?

Related: “I Must Take Issue With The Wikipedia Entry For ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic.”

Written by Newley

April 26th, 2007 at 3:32 am

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged with ,

Leave a Reply