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v virus human immunodeficiency virus virus lcd display liquid crystal display display pin number personal identification number number historical and current use edit this section needs more citations please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources unsourced material may be challenged and removed january 2015 learn how and when to remove this message acronymy like retronymy is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for which there was little to no naming conscious attention or systematic analysis until relatively recent times like retronymy it became much more common in the twentieth century than it had formerly been ancient examples of acronymy before the term acronym was invented include the following acronyms were used in rome before the christian era for example the official name for the roman empire and the republic before it was abbreviated as spqr senatus populusque romanus inscriptions dating from antiquity both on stone and on coins use many abbreviations and acronyms to save space and work for example roman first names of which there was only a small set were almost always abbreviated common terms were abbreviated too such as writing just f for filius meaning son a very common part of memorial inscriptions mentioning people grammatical markers were abbreviated or left out entirely if they could be inferred from the rest of the text so called nomina sacra sacred names were used in many greek biblical manuscripts the common words god θεός jesus ιησούς christ χριστός and some others would be abbreviated by their first and last letters marked with an overline this was just one of many kinds of conventional scribal abbreviation used to reduce the time consuming workload of the scribe and save on valuable writing materials the same convention is still commonly used in the inscriptions on religious icons and the stamps used to mark the eucharistic bread in eastern churches the early christians in rome used the image of a fish as a symbol for jesus in part because of an acronym or backronym fish in greek is ichthys ιχθυς which was construed to stand for ἰησοῦς χριστός θεοῦ υἱός σωτήρ iesous christos theou huios soter jesus christ god s son savior this interpretation dates from the second and third centuries and is preserved in the catacombs of rome another ancient acronym for jesus is the inscription inri over the crucifix for the latin iesus nazarenus rex iudaeorum jesus the nazarene king of the jews hebrew has a millennia long history of acronyms pronounced as words along with theophoric parallels to the greek described above talmudic sages as early as rabbi yehuda shorten the ten plagues to דצ ך עד ש באח ב the order of blessings to יקנה ז etc for the sake of mnemonic the rishonic period saw hebrew acronymy expand to a lexicon of many hundreds including every type of word and extending to proper nouns almost all medieval rabbis are known by acronyms like rashi and rambam during the mid to late nineteenth century acronyms became a trend among american and european businessmen abbreviating corporation names such as on the sides of railroad cars e g richmond fredericksburg and potomac railroad rf p on the sides of barrels and crates and newspaper stock listings e g american telephone and telegraph company at t some well known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include nabisco national biscuit company 38 esso from s o from standard oil and sunoco sun oil company another field for the adoption of acronyms was modern warfare with its many highly technical terms while there is no recorded use of military acronyms dating from the american civil war acronyms such as anv for army of northern virginia post date the war itself they became somewhat common in world war i and by world war ii they were widespread even in the slang of soldiers 39 who referred to themselves as g i s the widespread frequent use of acronyms across the whole range of linguistic registers is relatively new in most languages becoming increasingly evident since the mid twentieth century as literacy spread and technology produced a constant stream of new and complex terms abbreviations became increasingly convenient the oxford english dictionary oed records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899 but it did not come into general use until 1965 well after acronym had become common in english acronyms pronounced as words may be a twentieth century phenomenon linguist david wilton in word myths debunking linguistic urban legends claims that forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth and now twenty first century phenomenon there is only one known pre twentieth century english word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886 the word is colinderies or colinda an acronym for the colonial and indian exposition held in london in that year 40 41 however although acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the twentieth century as wilton points out the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly understood and evidently not novel in an edgar allan poe story of the 1830s how to write a blackwood article which includes the contrived acronym p r e t t y b l u e b a t c h early examples in english edit the use of latin and neo latin terms in vernaculars has been pan european and pre dates modern english some examples of acronyms in this class are a m from latin ante meridiem before noon and p m from latin post meridiem after noon a d from latin anno domini in the year of our lord whose complement in english b c before christ is english sourced the earliest example of a word derived from an acronym listed by the oed is abjud now abjad formed from the original first four letters of the arabic alphabet in the late eighteenth century 42 some acrostics pre date this however such as the restoration witticism arranging the names of some members of charles ii s committee for foreign affairs to produce the cabal ministry 43 ok a term of disputed origin dates back at least to the early nineteenth century and is now used around the world current use edit acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms the armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms some well known examples from the united states are among the alphabet agencies jokingly referred to as alphabet soup created under the new deal by franklin d roosevelt himself known as fdr business and industry also coin acronyms prolifically the rapid advance of science and technology also drives the usage as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter more pronounceable names citation needed one representative example from the u s navy is comcrudespac which stands for commander cruisers destroyers pacific it is also seen as comcrudespac inventors are encouraged to anticipate the formation of acronyms by making new terms yaba compatible yet another bloody acronym meaning the term s acronym can be pronounced and is not an offensive word when choosing a new name be sure it is yaba compatible 44 acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with short message service sms and instant messenger im to fit messages into the 160 character sms limit and to save time acronyms such as gf girlfriend lol laughing out loud and dl download or down low have become popular 45 some prescriptivists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity or as failure to use pure or proper english others point out that languages have always continually changed and argue that acronyms should be embraced as inevitable or as innovation that adapts the language to changing circumstances in this view the modern practice is just the proper english of the current generation of speakers much like the earlier abbreviation of corporation names on ticker tape or newspapers exact pronunciation of word acronyms those pronounced as words rather than sounded out as individual letters often vary by speaker population these may be regional occupational or generational differences or simply personal preference for instance there have been decades of online debate about how to pronounce gif ɡ ɪ f or dʒ ɪ f and bios ˈ b aɪ oʊ s ˈ b aɪ oʊ z or ˈ b aɪ ɒ s similarly some letter by letter initialisms may become word acronyms over time especially in combining forms ip for internet protocol is generally said as two letters but ipsec for internet protocol security is usually pronounced as ˌ aɪ ˈ p iː s ɛ k or ˈ ɪ p s ɛ k along with variant capitalization like ipsec and ipsec pronunciation may even vary within a single speaker s vocabulary depending on narrow contexts as an example the database programming language sql is usually said as three letters but in reference to microsoft s implementation is traditionally pronounced like the word sequel expansion at first use edit this section needs more citations please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources unsourced material may be challenged and removed january 2015 learn how and when to remove this message in writing for a broad audience the words of an acronym are typically written out in full at its first occurrence within a given text expansion at first use eafu benefits readers unfamiliar with the acronym 46 another text aid is an abbreviation key which lists and expands all acronyms used a reference for readers who skipped past the first use this is especially important for paper media where no search utility is available to find the first use it also gives students a convenient review list to memorize the important acronyms introduced in a textbook chapter expansion at first use and abbreviation keys originated in the print era but they are equally useful for electronic text jargon edit while acronyms provide convenience and succinctness for specialists they often degenerate into confusing jargon this may be intentional to exclude readers without domain specific knowledge new acronyms may also confuse when they coincide with an already existing acronym having a different meaning medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms including efforts by the american academy of dermatology 47 as mnemonics edit acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices for example the colors of the rainbow are roy g biv red orange yellow green blue indigo violet they are also used as mental checklists in aviation gumps stands for gas undercarriage mixture propeller seat belts other mnemonic acronyms include homes for the north american great lakes in geography pavpanic in english grammar and pemdas bodmas in mathematics acronyms as legendary etymology edit see also backronym it is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology called a folk etymology for a word such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis in historical linguistics and are examples of language related urban legends for example cop is commonly cited as being derived it is presumed from constable on patrol 48 and posh from port outward starboard home 49 with some of these specious expansions the belief that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue in cheek among many citers as with gentlemen only ladies forbidden for golf although many other more credulous people have uncritically taken it for fact 49 50 taboo words in particular commonly have such false etymologies shit from ship store high in transit 40 39 or special high intensity training and fuck from for unlawful carnal knowledge or fornication under consent command of the king 39 orthographic styling edit punctuation edit showing the ellipsis of letters edit in english abbreviations have previously been marked by a wide variety of punctuation obsolete forms include using an overbar or colon to show the ellipsis of letters following the initial part the forward slash is still common in many dialects for some fixed expressions such as in w for with or a c for air conditioning while only infrequently being used to abbreviate new terms the apostrophe is common for grammatical contractions e g don t y all and ain t and for contractions marking unusual pronunciations e g a ight cap n and fo c sle for all right captain and forecastle by the early twentieth century it was standard to use a full stop period point especially in the cases of initialisms and acronyms previously especially for latin abbreviations this was done with a full space between every full word e g a d i e and e g for anno domini id est and exempli gratia this even included punctuation after both roman and arabic numerals to indicate their use in place of the full names of each number e g lii or 52 in place of fifty two and 1 4 or 1 4 to indicate one fourth both conventions have fallen out of common use in all dialects of english except in places where an arabic decimal includes a medial decimal point particularly in british and commonwealth english all such punctuation marking acronyms and other capitalized abbreviations is now uncommon and considered either unnecessary or incorrect the presence of all capital letters is now thought sufficient to indicate the nature of the uk the eu and the un forms such as the u s a for the united states of america are now considered to indicate american or north american english even within those dialects such punctuation is becoming increasingly uncommon 51 ellipsis is understood style edit some style guides such as that of the bbc no longer require punctuation to show ellipsis some even proscribe it larry trask american author of the penguin guide to punctuation states categorically that in british english this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete 52 pronunciation dependent style and periods edit nevertheless some influential style guides many of them american still require periods in certain instances for example the new york times manual of style and usage recommends following each segment with a period when the letters are pronounced individually as in k g b but not when pronounced as a word as in nato 53 the logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme other conventions edit when a multiple letter abbreviation is formed from a single word periods are in general not used although they may be common in informal usage tv for example may stand for a single word television for instance and is in general spelled without punctuation except in the plural although ps stands for the single english word postscript or the latin postscriptum it is often spelled with periods p s as if parsed as latin post scriptum instead the slash or solidus is sometimes used to separate the letters in an acronym as in n a not applicable not available and c o care of inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented acco...
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