I always thought ISO stood for “International Standards Organisation”, so it’s been interesting to learn that A) It doesn’t and B) It’s not really supposed to stand for anything.
Sorry, it was many years since I read it and they didn’t really forget. They just didn’t think it was necessary according to the story.
So did I.
More programming:
SOAP - used to be Simple Object Access Protocol. They no longer make any claims to it being simple 
We’ve had laser, did we also have scuba and sonar?
And I wonder if backronyms count?
If you look at crap ones like ISIS – Integrated Sensor Is Structure – it’s pretty clear that the unabbreviated form is unlikely to catch on.
That’s why I was hoping for more detail. Because at the time they made that decision, they might have been right. I can’t really figure out why SAS the software company would have any reasonable argument that its reach stretches into the hotel market, especially considering that the initials “SAS” are hardly unique.
The National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS) changed its name to The International Justice & Public Safety Newtork.
Because IJPSN is a crappy acronym, they kept the acronym NLETS, which now doesn’t stand for anything.
I have my own I use for EBCDIC - Every Bit of Crap the Dicks at IBM Created.
SPIE is a big scientific organization in optics and photonics. The letters used to stand for the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers. They later changed the DBA name to The International Society for Optical Engineering but now call themselves simply SPIE.
CTIA-The Wireless Association no longer uses the name Cellular Telephone Industries Association.
Just guesses, the explosive T.N.T. and the company I.B.M. ?
I think I.B.M. still stands for International Business Machines.
As mentioned above, International Business Machines Corp. is still the official name of the company.
As for T.N.T. – assuming you’re talking about the explosive, it’s not the proper name of anything, and presumably it still stands for trinitrotoluene, but full chemical names like that usually only appear in technical usages, anyway. So I wouldn’t consider it orphaned.
Has anyone here mentioned “OK” yet?
I’m not sure it counts. The concept of orphaned initialism only really makes sense when the initialism is a property name and someone has the actual authority to declare what it does or doesn’t stand for.
I just thought of MTV, and had to add it here.
Nah. SCUBA was never “owned” by anyone IIRC. It stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. 
How about PCMCIA, those credit card sized slots on laptops from about 10 years ago. I think that stood for “People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms”. :smack:
Niptick.
Most of the examples here are abbreviations, not acronyms. It is only an acronym if the abbreviation forms a word that can be said aloud.
Scuba, Radar, Laser, Basic, Twain - acronyms
BP, MTV, IEEE, USB, BASF, IBM - abbreviations
Um, what about Première Banque du Canada?
Though, we do have a bank down here called “First Premier Bank”. I’d hate to see THAT translated to French - Banque Première et Première?
BASF, a German chemical company…I used to buy their cassette tapes (blank). A college friend’s mother worked for them…
Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik
True, but what muddies the waters is that acronyms are not necessarily lower or mixed case as you’ve written them.
So OPEC and UNESCO are generally considered acronyms.
Is SQL an acronym or an abbreviation?