in

Love ItLove It

Which of These Words is a Real Acronym?

An acronym is a special kind of word that acts as an abbreviation for a phrase. In the strictest sense, acronyms are new words formed by combining the first letter of each word in a phrase. One example of this is scuba, short for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.”

There are also backronyms, which are expressions that have been fitted into already existing words. The word “SAD” is a backronym for “Seasonal Affective Disorder.” Some other acronyms contain more than just the initial letters: Interpol, for example, stands for “International Criminal Police Organization.”

But some words claimed to be acronyms really aren’t. In fact, acronyms really only became popular in English after World War II. So if a word has a history that goes back prior to WWII, it’s likely that any phrase associated with it was an afterthought.

Can you tell which of the following words is a true acronym and which is a fake? See if you can detect the impostors!

  • Question of

    Captcha

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Bingo

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Adidas

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Laser

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Canola

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Posh

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Nabisco

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Golf

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    FAQ

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Cop

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Tip (as a gratuity)

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    EPCOT

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    RSVP

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    SOS

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Laser

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    AIDS

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Coma

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Amphetamine

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Ford (the car manufacturer)

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Kiss (the rock band)

    • Yes
    • No

Report

What do you think?

19 Points

Written by Blue Sailor

17 Comments

Leave a Reply
    • Actually Kim, both of those are incorrect. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “golf” derives from the mid-15th-century Scottish word “gouf,” which essentially means “stick” or “club.” The false acronym only dates to about 1997.

      As for SOS, it was “chosen arbitrarily as being easy to transmit and difficult to mistake. Not an initialism (acronym) for “save our ship” or anything else.” Both of these are examples of false acronyms that many people mistakenly believe to be real.

Leave a Reply