Backronym

A backronym or bacronym is a type of acronym that begins as an ordinary word, and is later interpreted as an acronym. The word "backronym" is a portmanteau of back and acronym, and was coined in 1983. asp The term is also used for a new set of words put to an existing acronym (e.g. "advanced research projects agency" → "arpa" → "address and routing parameters area").

An acronym is a word created from the initial letters of a phrase: for example, Random Access Memory becomes RAM, pronounced as the word "ram"; and the household word laser (as in laser printer) stems from Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Note the distinction between acronyms and initialisms: strictly speaking, one uses the term acronym only when the initials are pronounced as if they compose an actual word, though the term "backronym" is often used less precisely and applied to back-formed initialisms as well as back-formed acronyms.

Details

A backronym is created when one constructs a phrase that has, as its acronym, an existing short word. There are both official and generally serious, as well as unofficial and often humorous, backronyms. When a backronym is peddled as the origin of a word, it is often an example of false etymology; when widely believed, it may have the status of a folk etymology; but more usually it is intended and understood as a joke.

Types

Pure

A pure backronym occurs when a sequence of letters is commonly understood to stand for a phrase that had no role in its original conception. Examples are:

SOS, the international distress signal, chosen solely for its easy recognizability in Morse code(...---...), but often thought to stand for "save our ship" or "save our souls". It also reads the same no matter how you turn it, making the scribed letters easily recognizable at various angles of approach when viewed by potential rescuers at altitude (e.g. aircraft or mountaintops). Hopeful rescuees have made SOS signals in various ways, including the use of smoke signals, placement of rocks or tree limbs, controlled burnings, and mushed snow.
CQD, an older distress signal: "Come Quick, Distress (/Danger/Damnit)." This was used on amateur radio, where "CQ" was a common call.
Perl is a programming language that now powers many web pages around the world. Created by Larry Wall, it was originally named "PEARL", but since that name was already taken, it was shortened to Perl. The most common backronym is "Practical Extraction and Report Language"; however, Larry Wall also gives the other main backronym of Perl, "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister", equal legitimacy.
The word "wiki", from the Hawaiian word meaning "quick". Since its application to consumer generated media, some have suggested that "wiki" means "What I Know Is".
GI, slang for a U.S. soldier, often thought to stand for "Government Issue" as "G.I." was supposedly stamped on soldiers' equipment. Sometimes thought to stand for "General Infantry", or in Europe for "General Invasion". In fact, the abbreviation "GI" comes from "galvanized iron", GI being used in US Army bookkeeping to describe items such as trash cans made from it. class=external>[1
The Java programming language has been described as "Just Another Vague Acronym".
Bimbo, commonly interpreted to mean "Body impressive, brain optional".
IBM, "I've been moved", used among IBM employees because of the frequent position changes within the company.
Ohio, "Our Home Is Ohio" This is also a recursive acronym.

Linguistic diversity can lead to limitless possibilities. A JCB is a very widely-used mechanical digger, produced in England and named after the manufacturer's initials. On the west of Offa's Dyke, these letters take on a new meaning - in Wales, JCB becomes "Jac codi baw", meaning "Jack pick up dirt".

Replacement

Some backronyms are back-formed by replacing one or more words in an acronym with another, when the original meaning is deemed obsolete, inaccurate, or inappropriate. For example, DVD originally stood for "digital video disc"; when it was noted that DVDs can store any digital data - video or otherwise - the term "digital versatile disc" was substituted. [2] (Because no agreement was reached about the various possibilities, DVD now officially stands for nothing.)

Other examples are:-

BASIC, a programming language, has, mostly in the hacker community, jokingly come to stand for "Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control". This is because Microsoft was well known for its BASIC language interpreters from the late 1970s through mid-1980s. (BASIC as an acronym for "Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code" is often thought to be a backronym, but it is not.)
GSM, originally an acronym for a French research group called "Groupe Spécial Mobile", but later treated as "Global System for Mobile Communications".
DARE, originally "Drug Abuse Resistance Education" is now more commonly sarcastically said to mean "Drugs Are Really Expensive" or "Drugs Are Really Entertaining".
SAT Reasoning Test, a well-known example in the United States: originally "Scholastic Aptitude Test", but changed to "Scholastic Assessment Test" after parent groups complained that the word "aptitude" implied that test scores reflected only innate talent and not preparation. It now officially does not stand for anything. Among high-school students outside of America taking SATs in order to study in the US, SAT is often taken to stand for "Stupid American Test".
SATs (UK): Defined as "Standard Assessment Tasks" by the National Curriculum [3], this acronym is now variously described as standing for: "Standard Assessment Tests" [4]and "Standard Attainment Tests" [5], "Standard Attainment Targets" [6] and sometimes, recursively, as "SATs tests" [7]
SAP: originally "Secondary Audio Program", but eventually came to be described as "Spanish Audio Program".
GCC: originally "GNU C compiler", but compilers for various other languages have been added, and the acronym is now expanded to "GNU Compiler Collection."
RAID, originally "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks", now usually "Redundant Array of Independent Disks". This arose as RAID was originally a way to expand the linear capacity of unreliable commodity hard disk devices while providing extra reliability. Now the hard disk is standard, "independent" is more appropriate.
SNAFU, generally accepted to mean "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up," but bowdlerized by some to "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up."
FUBAR (pron. FOO bar), "Fucked/Fouled Up Beyond Any/All Recognition/Repair/Reconciliation"
RTFM "Read the Fucking Manual", also often bowdlerized as "Read the Fine Manual"
SPAM luncheon meat, whose name is a portmanteau of "spiced ham" has been known officially as "Specially Processed Assorted Meat" and unofficially as "Stuff Posing As Meat", "Squirrels, Possums, And Mice", "Special Pork and hAM", and "Small Pigs Amalgamated with Meat." Internet spam has also taken the backronym of "Short, Pointless, Annoying Messages", "Self Propelled Advertising Material" or "Stupid Person's AdvertiseMent".
ISO was often referred to as "International Standards Organization" (official English name: International Organization for Standardization) In fact ISO was originally named because "iso(s)" in Greek means "the same". The word later came into usage via Late Latin.
Emacs, originally short for "editor macros", has several humorous interpretations, such as "Eventually Mallocs All Computer Storage", "Eighteen Megabytes And Constantly Swapping" and "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift"
NSA (National Security Agency) is sometimes said to stand for 'No Such Agency.'
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) is sometimes said to mean "I Still Don't kNow". After British Telecom's feeble attempts to get it working in the UK - 'It Still Does Nothing'.
SDV (Swimmer Delivery Vehicle) is often said to mean 'SEAL Delivery Vehicle' because it is so commonly ascociated with the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Apronym

Many 'backronyms' are apronyms, as the word used as the 'backronym' is relevant to the expanded phrase it stands for. The relevance may be either serious or ironic. An example of this is the word "acronym" itself which can be A Clever Representation Of Names You Manufacture. Acronym can also stand for A Concise Reduction of Nomenclature yielding mnemonics. Apronyms may be used as a mnemonic device for remembering the underlying word. Many jocular (and often also derogatory) apronyms are created as a form of wordplay. An example of this is the former name for PC Card, PCMCIA: People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms (it was originally an initialism for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association), or the numerous backronyms constructed by conservative groups for the ACLU (e.g. Atheists Communists Liberals Unite, Anti-Christian Legislation Union, Anti-Civil Liberties Union) or PETA (e.g., People for the Eating of Tasty Animals, People Embarrassing the Tidewater Area). Similarly, the protocol associated with computer scanners, TWAIN, is often explained as representing 'Thing Without An Interesting Name'. Microsoft's MCSE is sometimes referred to as 'Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert'. Equally, Microsoft's popular Operating System can be rendered 'Will Install Needless Data On Whole System'. Another example of an apronym is found in the end of The Penultimate Peril, in which Justice Strauss is holding an injustice book entitled Odious Lusting After Finance, which both spells the name and defines the character of Count Olaf.

False

There are also false backronyms, in which letters are commonly, but inaccurately, thought to represent a phrase. Examples are:

A.D, which stands for Anno Domini (Latin: "in the year of the Lord") and counts years since the birth of Jesus. However, many people incorrectly interpret its definition as 'After Death [of Christ]' – commonly assumed because B.C. stands for "Before Christ" (though in current scholarship BC is itself increasingly treated as a replacement backronym for BCE/Before Common Era).
Chav, a common British colloquialism, has been etymologically interpreted as an acronym of "Council Housed And Violent" or "Council-Housed-Adolescent-Vermin". Another false etymology is that the term originates from Cheltenham Ladies' College, where the students would call the locals "Cheltenham Averages", which was abbreviated to "Chavs". In reality, the term derives from Chavi, the Romany word for child. The term pikey has a similarly racially-loaded dual meaning.
Ned is a Scottish term for a young hooligan (similar to Chav) that is frequently claimed to derive from "Non-Educated Deliquent". However, the word has been in use the 1950's and has never been used as official terminology. More likely etymologies are the old Scots word, "ne'erdowell" ('never do well') or Ted, a similarly nihilistic and violent youth subculture of the 1950's.
R.I.P, an internationally used acronym for Latin Requiescat in pace ("May he rest in peace"), not an English acronym for "Rest in Peace", as often thought, although the Latin and the English phrases have similar meaning and the same initials.
RPG, for Russian Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot ("handheld antitank grenade-launcher"), now commonly used as an abbreviation of "Rocket-Propelled Grenade".
RSVP does not stand for "Respond to Sender Via Post" but for the French "Répondez s'il vous plaît" which means "Please respond." (As with R.I.P., the English and original have similar meanings.)
Golf is not an acronym for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden" as has been suggested. It is actually derived from the Scottish name for the game, gowf. ; published in the US as
Posh does not stand for "Port Out Starboard Home", due to the 1st class cabins being those on the side of the ship facing the sun on trans-atlantic voyages. This false derivation was popularised in the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Concerned activists in the US created backronyms for famous heavy metal bands that attempt to allude at "evil" or satanic content and perhaps that such meaning was originally intended by the musicians. Examples include:-

KISS (Knights In Satan's Service) (ref: Brothers, Fletcher A in "The Rock Report", 1987 cites a January 1980 American Photographer article as his source.)
AC/DC (Anti-Christ/Devil's Children) or (After Christ, the Devil Comes) is a myth created by religious figures. It actually stands for Alternating Current/Direct Current. The band's founders (Angus and Malcolm Young) saw the letters on the back of a sewing machine; they thought that a name associated with electricity suited their energetic style. Also, often noted as "After Christ, the Lightning Striked, and the Devil Comes", this referring to the lightning bolt symbol that separated the AC and the DC. AC/DC is also a jocular term referring to an individual who is bisexual.
Slayer (Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot). Brothers further claims that this phrase is inscribed in the vinyl of the 'Show No Mercy' LP.
W.A.S.P (We Are Satan's People / We Are Sexual Perverts). Blackie Lawless sometimes defuses these claims with a simple We Ain't Sure, Pal.

Recursive

Some 'backronyms' are recursive acronyms like GNU, LAME, PHP, PINE and WINE or the pseudo-acronym JINI. HURD takes this one step further and has two mutually recursive acronyms. One humorous example is BACKRONYM, meaning "Backronyms Are Causing Karma Reversals On Nice Young Men."

Constructed

Other backronyms are constructed so that the expanded name will match a desired acronym. For instance, the USA PATRIOT Act ("Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act") was constructed to match the desired USA PATRIOT acronym by government staffers in the days following the September 11, 2001.

Some backronyms exploit the bewildering acronyms in the corporate world. For example:-

The old Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, more commonly known as "PSFS," was subjected for years to the backronym "Pretty shitty fucking stupid."
British travelers on the now-defunct Belgian carrier SABENA (originally an acronym for "Société Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne") often referred to it as "Such a bloody experience never again." (Or, less colloquially, "Such a bad experience, never again.")
The ICAO uses ETOPS, meaning Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards, to allow airplanes to fly over water for extended periods of time. However, ETOPS is sometimes read as Engines Turn Or People/Passengers Swim.
EPCOT, the Orlando, Florida Walt Disney World Resort theme park, once correctly stood for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (or occasionally city), is often referred to as "Every Person Comes Out Tired" or "Every Parent Carries One Toddler." Some employees have coined phrases such as "Experimental Polyester Costumes of Torture" and "Every Pocketbook Cleaned Out Thoroughly." In 1996, Disney dropped the acronym and the official name is now simply written as Epcot.
Fiat, the auto manufacturer, is often deridingly read as "Fix It Again Tony" or "Failure in Italian Automotive Technology", in reference to the car's Italian ancestry and its supposed penchant for mechanical troubles. Fiat backronyms in other languages include: Fehler in allen Teilen ("defects in every part") or Für Italien ausreichende Technik ("sufficient technology for Italy") in German and "Fábrica Italiana Atrapalhando o Trânsito" or "Fui Iludido, Agora é Tarde" (Italian Factory Ruining the Traffic and I Was Fooled Now it's Too Late, respectively) in Portuguese in Brazil.
CAAC or the Civil Aviation Administration of China is sometimes said to mean, none too flatteringly, China Almost Always Crashed.
PRT Philadelphia Rail Transit was referred to as "Pretty Rotten Transit."
An example from biology is the class of JAK enzymes, which initially stood for "Just Another Kinase." As their biologically crucial role in the interferon pathway was described, the JAK was said to stand for Janus Kinase, named after the two-faced roman god Janus.[8]
BOAC British Overrseas Airways, "Best On A Camel".

Offensive

Some backronyms are intentionally offensive or insulting. For example:

Army stands for "Aren't Really Marines Yet".
The Buffalo Bills NFL team is "Boy I Love Losing Super Bowls."
BMW stands for Break My Windows.
Cary, a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina is widely referred to as a "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees" by locals.
Cunt is often disguised as the acronym Catch You Next Tuesday, C.U.Next Tuesday, or See (C) You (U) Next Tuesday (Thursday can be substituted for Tuesday). The Seth MacFarlane-produced TV shows Family Guy and American Dad have used this acronym. It is also used as See (C) You (U) In (N) Toledo on the nationally syndicated radio program The Don and Mike Show, as well as other places on occasion.
Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is said to stand for "Every Day I Need Attention," referring to its upper-class residents.
Eidos, ex-sponsor to Manchester City Football Club (1999-2002)is said to mean "Eleven Idiots Dreaming Of Success".
Ford, "Found on the Road, Dead" refers to the perceived declining quality of Ford vehicles.
FUBU (For Us By Us) the name of the clothing brand is sometimes referred to as "Five Urban Brothers United" and "Farmers Used to Beat Us" and there are claims that prior to the brand's existence it also stood for "Fucked Up Beyond Understanding/Utility/Use" similar to FUBAR
Fuck, often apocryphally interpreted as "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" or "Fornication Under Consent of King."
Iona College has been called "Idiots On North Avenue", referring to the road that intersects the campus's main entrance.
Iowa is said to stand for "Idiots Out Wandering Around" by residents of eastern Nebraska and southeastern South Dakota.
J.B. Hunt, named for founder Johnnie Bryan Hunt, is one of the largest trucking companies in the U.S and Canada. However, due to its reputedly common practice of hiring inexperienced drivers, truckers often refer to it as meaning "Just Been Hired, Usually Not Trained."
Lodi, New Jersey is called sometimes "Land Of Dumb Italians"
Macintosh stands for "Most Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs".
Mackie, a company that makes music and sound equipment, have been described as producing the "Most Annoying Console Known In Existence."
MARTA, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, is often referred to as "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta".
NASCAR, has been re-defined as "Non-Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks."
NATO is known as "No Action, Talk Only", "Not After Two O'clock", and "Not Able to Operate" by those that have worked there.
OTAN, the French version of NATO, is commonly referred to as "Oh There's Another Nancy" by British troops.
Rap stands for "Retards Attempting Poetry".
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) stands for Please Inform Allah.
Pontiac, an automobile brand owned by General Motors, is "Poor Old Nigger Thinks It's A Cadillac".
PJC stands for "People Just Chilling", owing to its reputation of having students who are marking time until they decide what to major in and transfer to a bigger school.
ROCKINGHAM County, Virginia is called sometimes "Rednecks Organize Cow-Kissing, Industrialism, Nepotism, Graft, Hostility, And Misconduct"
SABENA airlines stands for "Such a bad experience, never again". Also, the airline SAS stands for "Same as SABENA".
Shit is often replaced with the less offensive "Sugar Honey in Tea" or "Sugar Honey Iced Tea". An example of this usage was in the animated family film Madagascar (2005).
TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), an operator of buses and subways, is sometimes said to stand for "Take The Car"
UCI, the University of California, Irvine, is "University of Chinese Immigrants."
UWF stands for "U Won't Finish" or "U Will Fail", owing to the fact that a lot of the students transfer from PJC where they were "just chilling" (see above).
UWRF (University of Wisconsin-River Falls) is sometimes referred to as "Ugly Women Roaming Freely."

External links

Backronym expansions of ACRONYM (Acronym Finder)
Citations of the word "backronym" from The Word Spy
List of backronyms (full 86Kb list, as recovered via Answers.com)
Airline backronyms
All about backronyms
World Wide Words is not specifically about backronyms, but several false examples are discussed among its articles.