# Do Other Non-English Speaking Countries Have Acronyms That Spell Out Words **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 24, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568 "2009-03-24T12:05:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568/41 "2009-03-25T19:56:28Z")
It seems Meretz is a second-order acronym – assembled from pieces of other acronyms, names of previous parties that Meretz was formed from. The initial letter מ _mem_ is from the initial of the Mapam party – the name מפ"ם Mapam is an acronym of מפלגת הפועלים המאוחדת _Mifleget ha-Po‘alim ha-Me’uḥedet_ ‘United Workers Party’. The next two letters ר _resh_ and צ _tsadi_ are the name of the Ratz party – itself an acronym of those two letters-- though why those two letters I don’t know, because the official name of the party itself (_ha-Tenoa‘ah Lizkhuyot ha-‘Ezraḥ ve-Shalom_) doesn’t use those letters. It was nicknamed Ratz because it was represented by the letters resh-tsadi on election ballots. No idea why that was. It forms the number 290. מרצ _Meretz_ itself is a word meaning ‘vitality’. Mapam is not a word in Hebrew though, just an initialism. רץ Ratz is a word meaning ‘runner, courier, bishop in chess’. But the party’s name is spelled רצ suggesting just the two letters as letters, not the word _ratz_, because it ends with the non-final form of tsadi, i.e. the tsadi is there as a letter on its own, not the final letter in an actual word. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568/42 "2009-03-25T20:31:40Z")
Here’s one in French, from Canada, that I fetched from the depths of my memory: ONET 85: Opération de Nettoyage de l’Environnement Territorial ONET sounds like “eau nette”, or “clean water”. It stands for “territorial environment cleaning operation”. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568/43 "2009-03-25T20:52:04Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Back during, say, the Lincoln Administration, they’d just refer to “the Act of March 3, 1862.” None of these stupidly baroque acronyms for Acts of Congress. Isn’t this how French laws are refered to today? ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568/44 "2009-03-25T21:08:31Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > It seems Meretz is a second-order acronym – assembled from pieces of other acronyms, names of previous parties that Meretz was formed from. > > The initial letter מ _mem_ is from the initial of the Mapam party – the name מפ"ם Mapam is an acronym of מפלגת הפועלים המאוחדת _Mifleget ha-Po‘alim ha-Me’uḥedet_ ‘United Workers Party’. > > The next two letters ר _resh_ and צ _tsadi_ are the name of the Ratz party – itself an acronym of those two letters-- though why those two letters I don’t know, because the official name of the party itself (_ha-Tenoa‘ah Lizkhuyot ha-‘Ezraḥ ve-Shalom_) doesn’t use those letters. It was nicknamed Ratz because it was represented by the letters resh-tsadi on election ballots. No idea why that was. It forms the number 290. > > מרצ _Meretz_ itself is a word meaning ‘vitality’. Mapam is not a word in Hebrew though, just an initialism. רץ Ratz is a word meaning ‘runner, courier, bishop in chess’. But the party’s name is spelled רצ suggesting just the two letters as letters, not the word _ratz_, because it ends with the non-final form of tsadi, i.e. the tsadi is there as a letter on its own, not the final letter in an actual word. Just to add to this very good analysis – Besides being the party’s “call letters,” as it were, at one point \*Ratz \*ran (heh) on the slogan “או שאתה \*\*רצ \*\*או שאתה הולך לאיבוד” (_O she’ata **ratz** , o she’ata holekh l’ibud_ – “You either **run** , or you get lost [lose your way]”) – so \*Ratz \*רצ was definitely a meaningful acronym. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2009, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568/45 "2009-03-26T06:59:27Z")
We do this occasionally in Quebec, not as assiduously as English-speakers, but a bit. I’m part of a housing rights group called POPIR - what the acronym stands for is long forgotten and is not actually relevant to its current mission (it’s been around forever in various incarnations), but it sounds like “pas pire” (“not bad”). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-other-non-english-speaking-countries-have-acronyms-that-spell-out-words/490568.md?page=2)