Wine, Texting and Acronyms

Does drinking wine turn texting abbreviations into acronyms?

This is what I saw as I turned the corner at the grocery store the other day - 

Even if I had been drinking, I am not sure I could have pronounced "GR8RW" as an acronym. Sure, "GR8" is a texting abbreviation (semiotics included) for "great" and "RW" is an initialization for "red wine", but an acronym these two do not make.

Of course I had to look up this new wine when I returned home. 

What I found left me even more confused (and I still hadn't had a drink).

From the ad copy: "...created without taking any shortcuts." "No abbreviations necessary."

ESL, EFL, Etc. and Location, Location, Location

ESL - English as a second language
EFL - English as a foreign language
TESL - Teaching English as a Second Language
TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language

If a language is a foreign language to a speaker, it seems obvious that it would be that speaker's second language (or third or forth), so why the differentiation?

The answer is location.

English is considered a foreign language when it is taught or learned in a non-English speaking country; it is considered a second language when it is taught or learned in an English speaking country.



Thanks to 22 Words for bringing this uproarious video to my attention.

However, if the class mentioned in the video is truly EFL, I would think the enrollment counselor would not be speaking English. It would be more semantically correct if the class was ESL, but it wouldn't be as humorous.

Captcha This: Completely Automated Public Turing

Check out this New York Times article titled "Deciphering Old Texts, One Woozy, Curvy Word at a Time."

Not only does it provide the acronym-based etymology of the word captcha, it also explains how web readers are actually transforming old articles and books into computer text files every time they enter a captcha code on a website.

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Cool stuff.

Acronyms in the News

The October 1 issue of The Week magazine mentions that the International House of Pancakes is suing the International House of Prayer (A Kansas City religious mission) for using its acronym. Apparently the International House of Prayer has abbreviated its name as IHOP for the past 10 years without incident and only recently has it become an issue, according to an International House of Pancakes spokesman, because "the church has expanded and now some of the branches are serving food."

I wonder what would happen if the International House of Prayer started giving out MP3 players loaded with prayers and changed the orthography of its acronym to iHOP?

Language Specific Shopping Acronyms

I am not much of a shopper, but as I passsed a store advertising a sale today it struck me how much the acronym for "BUY ONE, GET ONE" has truly become a standard part of the lingo of shopping in the United States. As I read the sign (similar to the one pictured below)...

I immediately read aloud to myself, "bogo" (phonetically, /bogo/). By the way, it is not uncommon to overhear people discussing which store is currently having a bogo. In fact, it has become so common that some stores advertise as follows:

This, of course, got my language-loving brain thinking about other languages and their shopping acronyms.

If English language speakers have "BOGO"...are the following acronyms used by native language speakers in their respective countries?

AUOU (acheter un obtenir un) in France

CUyLU (compre uno y llévese uno) in Spain

KSEAM (Kaufen Sie eine ankommen man) in Germany

OYSY (ostaa yhden saat yhden ) in Finland

VEKE (vesz egy kap egy) in Hungary

KEFE (Kaupa einn fá einn) in Iceland

CACCAF (ceann a cheannach ceann a fháil) in Ireland

PUPD (paghi uno prendi due) in Italy

Acronyms - Is it ZIP code or zip code?

One of my favorite blogs, Red Pen, Inc., recently included a post about the acronym "ZIP" as in "ZIP code." The gist of the post was that the "ZIP" in "ZIP code" should always be capitalized because it is an acronym. I am not so sure that I agree with this thinking, therefore, I sent the following comment:

Just like metaphors that are usually classified as either living or dead, I would think that this acronym could be classified as dead because the word "zip" seems to have taken on its own meaning that is not associated with the acronym. Also, this meaning of "zip" seems to have become accepted as part of the standard lexicon of English.

Interestingly, the OED lists the "zip" of "zip code" in lower case letters and does not mention anything about the need for capitalization.

After sending this comment, I continued to think about etymology and language change. Language is constantly changing and when a change in the definition of a word (or acronym, I would argue) becomes accepted as part of the standard lexicon that is when the original meaning is considered dead. The original, acronymical meaning of zip is "Zone Improvement Plan," as named by the U.S. Postal Service in 1963. I think it is noteworthy, however, that the Online Etymology Dictionary states the acronym was, "no doubt chosen with conscious echo of the verb zip meaning 'move rapidly'."

It is apparent to me that the "move rapidly" definition of "zip" has become accepted as part of the standard lexicon, therefore capitalization should be optional and could soon be obsolete as the acronymical meaning fades entirely.

Acronyms and Bacronyms

Acronyms are everywhere these days. They are so common that most people don't even give them a second thought...but what about bacronyms. Bacronyms are not so common; in fact, many people have never even heard of bacronyms.

A bacronym is, in essence, the opposite of an acronym. Where an acronym is formed by taking a phrase and using the first letter of each word of the phrase to form a word, a bacroynm is formed by taking a word and creating a phrase (usually humorous) using the letters of the word as initials.

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Clarification on Acronym vs. Initialism Post

I want to call your attention to the comments (thank you readers) on today's post about acronyms and initialisms. I have added another comment that might help make the post a bit clearer, or it might not.

"A" and "An" with Acronyms and Initialisms

There was an article a week or so ago in the Detroit Free Press that mentioned something about "an NWA employee." As I was reading the article, I read "NWA" to myself as "Northwest Airlines" (out of habit), thus the preceding "an" sounded incorrect. Remember the rule - always use "a" before a word that begins with a consonant sound and "an" before a word that begins with a vowel sound. This got me to thinking about the use of the determiners "a" and "an" with acronyms and initialisms.

Acronyms are pretty much straightforward compared to initialisms. An acronym is generally formed from the initial letters or syllables of a name and it is always verbalized as a word - Think of NATO, it is never read or spoken of as "N"-"A"-"T"-"O" so there is not a question that it would be "a NATO meeting," and not "an 'N'-'A'-'T'-'O' meeting."

On the other hand, initialisms, though also formed from the initial letters of a name and written as such, are not always verbalized as individual letters (contrary to the definition). This is why when reading "an NWA employee" as "an Northwest Airlines employee," the use of "an" as a determiner sounded and would be considered incorrect.

I could not find a rule regarding this problem in the Associated Press Stylebook. I would guess that because initialisms are made of initials and the initials are not used to form a separate word as they are in acronyms, determiner usage should be based on the verbalization of the first letter of the initialism.

In sum, I believe the Free Press was correct and it was my fault for reading "NWA" as "Northwest Airlines." The only problem would be if a person encountered an unknown abbreviation that could be read as an acronym or an initialism.