Basic Trope: Acronyms spell or sound out words.
- Straight: There's an organization called the National Enigma Research Department, or N.E.R.D.
- Exaggerated: Many things in the work have nifty acronyms.
- Downplayed: It's just the National Research Department (N.R.D.), which doesn't quite spell the word "nerd" but it's close enough.
- Justified:
- The founder, Alice, was proud of her nerdy ways and thought it would be cool if her organization spelled the word "nerd".
- Such an acronym easily conveys what kind of organization or concept it is.
- It's association with the organization or product that turned the acronym into a word. (EG: scuba, from Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus)
- Whoever was on the PR team just really hated everyone there.
- It's a particularly lucky/awful coincidence.
- Inverted: The organization has such a long name that its abbreviation is very hard to pronounce, and certainly not a word.
- Subverted: The organization is called N.E.R.D., but it doesn't actually stand for anything because they couldn't think of any fitting words, or the organization just wanted its name in all caps.
- Double Subverted: The organization later decides that N.E.R.D. will stand for National Enigma Research Department.
- Parodied:
- There's a club called the GOBS, or Group Of Brainy PalS. Alice, who came up with the name, says, "Yes, I know it's forced, but I wanted it to spell something."
- Someone protests the organization having the "N.E.R.D." acronym and demands it to be changed, only to be told that literally every other competing organization out there is using the different designation with the other cool words, and they all have a similar pun (G.E.E.K., B.O.O.K.W.O.R.M., P.O.I.N.T.D.E.X.T.E.R., K.N.O.W.I.T.A.L.L., D.O.R.K., D.W.E.E.B., etc.)
- Zigzagged:
- Averted: The organization is called the National Department for the Research of Unusual Situations, which forms the meaningless abbreviation N.D.R.U.S.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "That spells 'nerd'!"
- Invoked: "If our initials spell out something, people would remember what our group is called."
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Alice refuses to name her organization anything where the initials spell out words, because she's afraid people wouldn't take it seriously.
- Discussed: "And there was this group and its initials spelled out the word 'nerd'!"
- Conversed: "This show focuses on this group called the National Enigma Research Department... look at the initials."
- Implied: The word "nerd" is seen written in capital letters on a building. It is probably an acronym, because otherwise, it'd be strange to have that word there.
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played for Laughs:
- Two feuding organizations have initials that spell out O.R.D.E.R. and D.I.S.C.O.R.D.
- The group's acronym spells a word that doesn't describe the group at all.
- The group has initials that spell out something rude.
- The group has an acronym that expands into "Organization Without a Cool Acronym".
- Played for Drama:
- The fact the acronym spells out an embarrassing name leads to the organization being ignored until it's too late.
- The man who designed the artefact is more than a little pissed at the guy who is in charge of creating acronymic designations, because he thinks the latter man manufactured the jokey name as a deliberate insult.
Back to Fun with Acronyms.
