# Is there a word for an acronym that DOES spell a word? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 5, 2018, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050 "2018-03-05T06:56:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bic\_D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bic\_D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bic_D)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/21 "2018-03-06T04:03:28Z")
I always thought SWAG was Simple Wild A\*\* Guess. SWAT = Special Weapons and Tactics ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/22 "2018-03-06T04:18:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK is an acronym, one of the earliest in the English language. It stands for “Oll Korrect”, a deliberately-humorous misspelling of “All Correct”. “Okay” is just a phonetic rendition of the letters. Then why isn’t it Ohhkay or Ohkay? ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/23 "2018-03-06T04:53:13Z")
What about when they made up LORAN from **LO** ng **RA** nge **N** avigation? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/24 "2018-03-06T05:02:05Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > What about when they made up LORAN from **LO** ng **RA** nge **N** avigation? Who knows. The Greek _akron_ means end or tip, so based on the etymology you could argue that it’s reasonable that the meaning isn’t restricted to just single initial letters. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/25 "2018-03-06T05:03:21Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > That and $1 will almost get you a cup of joe these days. 😛 So I should provide a cite of someone else’s personal observations? [quote=“Karen\_Lingel, post:20, topic:810050”] More categories: [li]Unpronouncable acronyms that became words anyway: like okay and emcee.[/li][/QUOTE] Funny that I have no problem at all pronouncing either of those words. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/26 "2018-03-06T05:08:22Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Then why isn’t it Ohhkay or Ohkay? Because that’s not a natural way of writing those phonemes in English. We write open, not ohhpen. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/27 "2018-03-06T05:22:03Z")
> [@Karen\_Lingel](#): > > … > [li]Unpronouncable acronyms that became words anyway: like okay and emcee.[/li][/LIST] > [@dtilque](#): > > Funny that I have no problem at all pronouncing either of those words. I thought Karen’s meaning was pretty clear. The original acronyms would have been “OK” and “MC”, which don’t look like normal English words with any obvious pronunciation. Okay and emcee are pronounceable, but they are not the acronyms, they are invented words to represent the sound of the sequence of spelled-out letters in unpronounceable acronyms. You have, however, now provided a valid cite in support of your prior contention that there is an unusually high proportion of anal-retentive nerds on SDMB.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/28 "2018-03-06T11:46:19Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > ETA: Re your hed: Instead of “Dem’s fighting’ woids” I may now use “Those strike me as pelling words” (and I will relish the reduplication). Once a verb, it now lives in “pell-mell.” I still don’t understand what this means, or what the relevance is. Pel-mell doesn’t seem to have any connection to the OP’s question. It has been around for a long time and was never an acronym: > [@](#): > > Sir Thomas North, in his 1579 translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, used the term to mean ‘in disordered confusion’: > > “He entred amongest them that fled into their Campe pelmel, or hand overheade.” Shakespeare also used it. > **[Pell-mell - Meaning & Origin Of The Phrase](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/pell-mell.html)** > > What's the meaning and origin of the phrase 'Pell-mell'? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/29 "2018-03-06T13:23:12Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > The one that always makes me cringe (for many reasons) is the act that passed Congress in 2001: the " **U** niting and **S** trengthening **A** merica by **P** roviding **A** ppropriate **T** ools **R** equired to **I** ntercept and **O** bstruct **T** errorism Act of 2001”, or the [USA PATRIOT Act.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act) That one bothered me, because you know some team stayed up all night to get something that spelled out “USA PATRIOT” but didn’t sound outrageously tortured to do so. But it’s just not worth the trouble. Nobody thinks it’s cute, and nobody cares what the damned acronym is – Just call it the "USA Patriot Act’ right off the bat, and spare us the wordplay. It reminds me of one I heard of when I was a kid – a biotelemtry system for studying whales at sea in the form of a robotic fish called the Motorized Observation Biotelemetry Yacht-Data, Integration, and Control, or MOBY-DIC. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/30 "2018-03-06T13:31:44Z")
Names made up so that their acronyms will form a word are “backronyms”. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/31 "2018-03-06T14:27:09Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Names made up so that their acronyms will form a word are “backronyms”. This has been stated more than once in this thread, starting with #6 ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/32 "2018-03-06T15:54:50Z")
Mr Bond defeated (several times) the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. Would the last two be reversed in the USA? The APGAR score comes from the name of Virginia Apgar (1909–74), a US anesthesiologist who developed the method for measuring the physical condition of a newborn infant. You obtain an Apgar score by adding points (0, 1, or 2) for skin colouration (Appearance), heart rate (Pulse), response to stimulation (Grimace), muscle tone (Activity), and respiratory effort (Respiration). ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/33 "2018-03-06T16:51:47Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I thought Karen’s meaning was pretty clear. The original acronyms would have been “OK” and “MC”, which don’t look like normal English words with any obvious pronunciation. Okay and emcee are pronounceable, but they are not the acronyms, they are invented words to represent the sound of the sequence of spelled-out letters in unpronounceable acronyms. My point, which I admit was probably not obvious, is that pronouncing letters is not significantly different than pronouncing words. It’s not like someone made up an unpronounceable symbol for them. > [@](#): > > You have, however, now provided a valid cite in support of your prior contention that there is an unusually high proportion of anal-retentive nerds on SDMB.🙂 Oh, guilty of that. I fit in well here among my fellow nerds. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/34 "2018-03-06T19:26:20Z")
D.A.R.E. or…Drug Abuse Resistance Education. It was part of the “just say no” 80s, early 90s. They were antidrug classes “taught” by active police officers meant to scare elementary school students straight into a life of sobriety. I even remember the name of my DARE teacher: Officer Hazzard (no lie). If it wasn’t for him, god, I’d be pretty much…exactly the same. ETA: “DARE to keep your kids off drugs!” was one of their slogans. ---
**Author:** ![SayTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@SayTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayTwo)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/35 "2018-03-06T20:14:52Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The idea that an acronym must spell a word or be pronounced as other than a sequence of letters is something that anal-retentive nerds came up with. Your typical person doesn’t care about that. General usage is that any abbreviation made up of the inital letters of a multi-word term is an acronym. Dictionaries follow general usage. > > So there isn’t a word that the OP is asking about. The closest is when an abbreviation is chosen first (usually the same as a word that means something significant to the concept/thing/organization being named) and then the expansion is generated from that. Those are called **bacronyms**. Personally, I hate bacronyms. What the poster is asking about is an acronym, which is a word made from letters. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/36 "2018-03-06T20:20:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This has been stated more than once in this thread, starting with #6 But always misspelled. The US Navy has a new system for automating carrier landings - Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies. Purely by coincidence, the acronym is MAGIC CARPET. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/37 "2018-03-06T20:31:19Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > But always misspelled. Since the portmanteau is back+acronym, either spelling makes sense, and both are prevalent. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/38 "2018-03-06T20:33:01Z")
> [@SayTwo](#): > > What the poster is asking about is an acronym, which is a word made from letters. Necessary, but not sufficient. (Those are some more words made from letters.) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050/39 "2018-03-06T22:25:53Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > But always misspelled. Evidence for the anal-retentiveness of SDMBers continues to mount. > [@](#): > > The US Navy has a new system for automating carrier landings - Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies. Purely by coincidence, the acronym is MAGIC CARPET. Ugh! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-word-for-an-acronym-that-does-spell-a-word/810050.md?page=1)