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Fun with Acronyms
(aka: Fun With Initialisms)

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Fun with Acronyms (trope)
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Maria Hill: What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?
Grant Ward: Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Maria Hill: And what does that mean to you?
Grant Ward: It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out "shield".
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot episode

D.E.S.C.R.I.B.E.: Descriptions are Every Sustainably Cool and Rad Trope that begin every said Trope even I've Been Everywhere to find it.

In fictional (and sometimes not so fictional) acronyms, priorities are reversed. It's not so important that the full name be clear, memorable and to the point; it matters much more that the actual acronym spell out a word or phrase, preferably a meaningful, impressive (or just plain funny) one. This results in "backronyms", acronyms created before the names they allegedly stand for — if the acronym even stands for anything at all. In other words, fiction tends to go for Appellations Creatively Relevant, Occasionally Nonsensical, Yet Meaningful.

For instance, no writer would have allowed New York's police force to come up with the abbreviation "NYPD". That can't even be properly pronounced. No, they'd have named it, ehm… something like the Central Organization of Police Specialists. It doesn't matter so much that the full title is essentially meaningless — we got it to spell out COPS!note  Heck, we can even sell some toys now! Or, you know what would be better than COPS, would be JUSTICE! So what does JUSTICE stand for? Nothing. That's right, we don't even need it to stand for anything if we don't want it to!

This isn't just for names that are cool, of course. It's also for names which accidentally hint at the true nature of an organization (e.g., a pro-tobacco council with the name CHOKE), or just as "accidentally" spell out something naughty or undignified.

Of course, sometimes a neat acronym can be derived from a sensible name. This is what we call the best of both worlds. (Or should that be the best of both words?) For even more fun, make it a Recursive Acronym, or add Acronym Confusion.

In government, military, and engineering contexts, this is absolutely Truth in Television, probably because there are so many acronyms in those fields that nobody can remember them if they don't have a nice mnemonic. That Other Wiki calls it a backronym.

Technically it's only an acronym if you pronounce it as one word (like "laser" or "scuba"), and if you spell out the letters, it's an initialism. In practice, most people just use "acronym" for them all, so feel free to add them as examples.

In case it's still unclear, an ACRONYM is A Concise Representation Of Nomenclature Yielding Meaning.

See also Initialism Title, Acronym and Abbreviation Overload, and Acronyms Are Easy as Aybeecee. Many examples involve a Shoehorned First Letter.

Super-Trope of A.I.-cronym and Shoehorned Acronym and sister trope to Embarrassing Initials.


Example subpages:

  • Just Another Perfectly Artistic Novelty or Anime & Manga
  • Chronicles Overusing Many Illustrations Creatively, or Comic Books
  • Short Terrific Radical Images in Proceeding Sequence, or Comic Strips
  • Fanatics And Novices' Fiction-Inspired Creations, or Fan Works
  • Figures In Lifelike Motion, or Film
  • Big Ocean Of Knowledge, or Literature
  • Timely Exhibitions Likely Entertainment Virtually Inside Sets Interconnected Over Networks, or Live-Action TV
  • Melodies Utilizing Singing, Instruments, and Chords, or Music
  • Dudes In Calculated Enthusiasm, or Tabletop Games
  • Grappling Against Multiple Enemies, or Video Games
  • Frames Layering Artistic Super Highway, or Web Animation
  • Drawn In Graphical Interfaces To Astound Lurkers, or Webcomics
  • Sublime Unlimited Readable Fun, or Web Original
  • Creative Animated Reels from the Transcontinental Organisations for Occidental Neologism, or Western Animation
  • Relative Epitome of All Life, or Real Life

Other examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Annoying Directed Sales or Advertisement 
  • The point of an Emerald Nuts ad campaign a few years back. There's a bizarre scene, for example, two guys circling each other in shopping carts proclaiming "My name is Norman and I am great!" "No, I'm a better Norman than you!" The tagline: "Egomanical Normans love Emerald Nuts!" There were quite a few variants (Elegant Naysayers, Evil Navigators, Extinguished Novelists, etc), and the campaign built up to a Super Bowl Special in which Eagle-eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize A Little Druid Networking Under The Stairs.
  • There was an Amstel (beer brand) campaign some years ago whose ads consisted of really funny songs, like "Amigo Mío, Sólo Tú Encuentras Leña" (My Friend, Only You Find Firewood) or "Amigo Mío, Si Te Echaras Laca" (My Friend, If only You Wore Hairspray). Of course, the point of the ad was how great Amstel was for sharing with your friends.
  • A commercial for Staples features a law firm that decides to abbreviate their name in order to save ink when printing their name. Unfortunately, their firm's name is Dudley-Irwen-Newberg-Gonzales-Brown-Anderson-Taylor & Stein.
  • From an extended Microsoft advertising commercial featuring Felicia Day as herself:
    Guide: MSN gets the highest average visits for minute and the largest US BPI of any portal...
    Felicia: BPI?
    Guide: Mmm-hmm
    Felicia: Battle Planetary Invasion?
    Guide: Buying Power Index.
    Felicia: Butter Pecan Ice Cream?
    Guide: Buying Power Index.
    Felicia: Being Pretty Interesting...
    Guide: ...It means a higher propensity to purchase.
  • Colgate toothpaste contains sodium monofluorophosphate (MFP), whose initials were once marketed as Maximum Fluoride Protection.
  • The American commercial for Sonic the Hedgehog has Humans Against Genesis.
  • The candy bar PB Max had a campaign somewhat similar to Emerald Nuts, with ads illustrating what the "PB" in the name did not stand for - "Penguin Black Belt" or "Plywood Bobsled" for instance. "PB" actually stood for "peanut butter", by the way.
  • The cell phone manufacturer HTC had a 2013 television ad featuring a Hipster Troll Carwash, amongst other acronyms.
  • Adidas campaigns have used backronyms such as All Day I Dream About Sports.
  • A 1998 commercial for Kids' WB! gave a humorous acronym to help kids remember the weekday lineup: Toothless Camels Bake Apples Pies, Baby, meaning Tiny Toons, Captain Planet, Bugs 'n' Daffy, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Batman/Superman (Though on Fridays, when Umptee-3 was on, it was instead "Ugly Camels...").
  • Suzy Puppy ends with an acronym called P.U.P.S about how to buy a puppy responsibly. These four steps are meeting the puppy's parent, checking to be sure the puppy isn't underageHuh?, checking the puppy's papers, and checking the puppy for sickness.
  • A public service announcement for the 1998 Philippine elections by Hope Cigarettenote  called for an Honest Orderly & Peaceful Election.
  • Microsoft Office XP:
    • Clippy is convinced that the "XP" in Office XP stands for "Ex-Paperclip" now that he has been phased out of Office.
    • The accompanying Flash game is called "X-tract Paperclip" and even has the appropriate letters highlighted on the title screen.

    Maybe Another Game Is Common or Card Games 
  • The HORSE format consists of alternating rounds of Hold'em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, 7-card Stud and 7-card Stud Eights-or-better. One can't help but feel that the last couple of letters are somewhat forced. There's also HOSE, which is the same but without Razz.
  • Magic: The Gathering players have a mnemonic guideline for drafting. Put it all together and it spells BREAD:
    • Bombs (extremely powerful), Removal (get rid of opponent cards), Evasion (creatures that are hard to block), Aggro (Boring, but Practical creatures), Dregs (whatever's left)
    • The infamously unintuitive Protection ability has its effects summarized with the acronym DEBT which standards for preventing Damage, not allowing the card to be Equiped or Enchanted, can't be Blocked, can't be Targeted.
    • The joke set Unstable has SNEAK, a group of spies, which stands for a different thing in every flavour text that spells it out.
    • A common joke about the card Koth of the Hammer is that the name Koth stands for Koth of the Hammer.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • The monster called a T.A.D.P.O.L.E., one vital component for a Des Frog, is a pun-based acronym that only truly makes sense in the original Japanese name. The five Kanji that make up its name are 悪 / 魂 / 邪 / 苦 / 止 (pronounced o / tama / ja / ku / shi respectively) which individually mean "evil / soul / vice / pain / stop", but the syllables can also form the single word otamajakushi or "tadpole".'' The English name is an attempt to reproduce the pun, but Konami has never given any suggestion for the letters representing English words. (Fanfic writers have offered many suggestions.)
    • Number 101: Silent Honor ARK, which aside from being a literal Cool Ship, has capital letters that spell out SHARK. This is a reference to its user in the ZEXAL anime, Ryoga Kamishiro, who was frequently nicknamed "Shark" and also used several shark-based monsters. As a call-back to this, the card game later released Nafil Asylum Heth Knight (and its upgrade, CXyz Nafil Asylum Chaos Knight), meant to work with Shark's cards from the anime. The anagram here spells out "Nash" or "Nasch", both of which are spellings for the name of Ryoga's Barian identity.
    • Packs have a special prefix put on each card to denote which set that card came from. They're taken from the first letters of the set's name, and will sometimes be used to spell out a word. For example, Clash of Rebellions becomes CORE. Another example is Duel Devastator, whose prefix is DUDE.
    • Decks themselves have anagrams made by fans, though only a few are officially recognized. One of them is a deck mixed with Hands, Artifacts and Traptrix, which becomes H.A.T. and Shaddoll-Artifact-Traptrix becomes ''Sh.Ar.T.''
    • Accel Synchro Stardust Dragon, unsurprisingly, tends to be referred to by its initialism by players for a quick giggle.
  • There is, of course, the entire game SPANC: Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls. One Pyramid magazine article mentioned a fictional expansion called Barbarian Dogboy Space Marines.

     Japes Of Keenly Excruciating Silliness, or Jokes 
  • In the US military's Inter-Service Rivalry, the branches will often trash-talk one another using acronyms:
    • One of the common jokes told about the U.S. Marine Corps is that "Marine" is short for "Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential." Another one, poking fun at their reliance on their sister branch, is "My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment."
    • The Marines, in turn, will joke that an Army soldier Ain't a Real Marine Yet (or the non-branch-specific version, soldiers Aren't Really Men Yet). The Air Force will chime in that the Air Force Rejected Me Yesterday.
    • Sailors can turn this against themselves, commenting "Never Again Volunteer Yourself."
  • Mechanics and auto enthusiasts commonly tell jokes about car brands they don't like being derived from unflattering acronyms:
    • "BMW" is short for "Big Money Waste" or "Break My Wallet."
    • "Fiat" is short for "Failed Italian Automotive Technology" or "Fix It Again, Tony."
    • "Ford" is short for "Found On Road Dead, " "Fixed Or Repaired Daily," "Fucked-Over Rebuilt Dodge," or "Fast Only Rolling Downhill."
    • "GM" is short for "Garbage Motors" or "General Mismanagement."
    • "GMC" is short for "God's Mechanical Curse," "GM's Crap," or "Got a Mechanic Coming?"
    • "Hyundai" is short for "Here's Y U Never Drive An Import."
    • "Kia" is short for "Keep Inside Asia" or "Korean Imitation Accord."
    • "Porsche" is short for "Proof Of Rich Spoiled Children Having Everything."
    • "Saab" is short for "Send Another Automobile Back."
    • "Subaru" is short for "Stupid Urbanites Bumbling Around Rural Areas."
    • "Toyota" is short for "The One You Ought To Avoid" or "Too Often Yankees Overprice This Auto."
    • "VW" is short for "Virtually Worthless."
    • "Honda" is short for "Had One Never Did Again."

     Playing In Nostalgic Balls Alongside Leisurely Lounges, or Pinball 
  • In Zen Studios' Spider-Man pinball, the SPIDEY Spelling Bonus stands for "Spectacular Score", "Perfect Ball Saver", "Incredible Jumps", "Deluxe Web Shooters", "Enhanced Strength", and "Yeah! Extra Ball!"
  • The tube transport system in Xenon is the Kinetic Molecular Integrated Evolution Cylinder, a tribute to designer Greg Kmiec.
  • The Big Bad of Dialed In! is Dialed In Electronics.

     People On Digital Communications Adamantly Sharing Too-Good-To-Be-True Stories, or Podcasts 
  • The crew of Mission to Zyxx is coordinated by a Missions Operations Manager, Nermut Bundaloy. He takes a lot of flack when he is promoted to Temporary Emergency Emissarial Negotiations Missions Operations Manager.
  • The Player Characters in Trials & Trebuchets are named Serinepth, Winsler, Integrity, and Mira, giving their team the nickname "SWIM". Later, SWIM learn that their mentor Artis's team when he was a student was Dain, Artis, Fidan, and Teb, or "DAFT".
  • Kill James Bond! rates every James Bond film (and later, other spy/action films) using the patented SCUM system, scoring them on a scale from 1 to 007 in four categories: Smarm, Cultural Insensitivity, Unprovoked Violence, and Misogyny. Non-Bond films reviewed prior to the episode covering No Time to Die were instead scored using the GIRTH system, standing for Glory, Intellectualism, Respecting the Troops, and Heterosexuality.

    People Read Interesting News Today, or Print Media 
  • In 1992, James May was tasked to compile Autocar's Road Test Year Book, which was a series of car reviews with the first letter of each beginning with a large red initial. As he felt that the work was extremely boring, James arranged and edited the first few reviews so that their initials spelled "Road Test Year Book". However, he also arranged the other reviews such that, when proper punctuation is added in, their initials spelt "So you think it's really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up; it's a real pain in the arse." The latter was probably the reason why he was dismissed from the magazine after it went to print and readers started calling up the magazine thinking there might be a prize for being Genre Savvy.
  • People who write to Dan Savage's sex advice column, "Savage Love", often pick a publication name which can be shortened into an acronym describing their problem. HELP, LOST, SCREWED, etc. He complained about it once, but the practice continues.
  • An article about an improbable baseball pitcher in Sports Illustrated had the first letters of the words in the first sentence spell out APRIL FOOLS
    • The "Strange Universe" column in Sky and Telescope often has the first letters of each paragraph in the April issue spell out some sort of April Fools-related message.
  • Famous tabloid magazine TMZ doesn't stand for anything by itself, but it is a sneaky reference to the Thirty-Mile Zone, a union rule that defines what counts as a local production for Hollywood-based studios (and thus requiring the studios to compensate film crews for their travel and accommodations when working outside of the zone).
  • This trope is probably why Air and Space Smithsonian magazine is usually abbreviated as "A&S" or "A&S Smithsonian". Notably, when it moved to four-times—a-year publication as Air & Space Quarterly the editors showed no such reluctance to abbreviate it as "A&SQ”.
  • Doctor Who Magazine:
    • A one-panel comic in one issue had the Brigadier being informed that UNIT were to be replaced with the International Defence Intelligence Operations Taskforce.
    • The final "Wotcha!" column, writer Nicholas Pegg having allegedly been let go as part of a purge of all critical content at the request of BBC Worldwide, had the first letters of each sentence form the acrostic "PANINI AND BBC WORLDWIDE ARE C*NTS". (Panini being the publishing company.)
  • When Tony Blair was made UN Envoy to the Middle East, Private Eye had the Reverend Blair, former vicar of St Albions, become a missionary for the ecumenical organisation Drawing All Faiths Together.
  • OWL magazine's title originally stood for Outdoors and Wild Life.

    Roughhousing In No-nonsense Gear, or Professional Wrestling 
  • When Lance Storm, the leader of WCW's Team Canada, won the WCW Hardcore Championship, he (in Kayfabe, in reality it was Vince Russo) renamed it the Saskatchewan Hardcore Invitational Title.
    • According to Storm, Vince Russo wanted to call said belt the Stu Hart Invitational Title, but WCW was unable to get permission from Mr. Hart.
    • Similarly, when WWE wrestler Rosey became The Hurricane's sidekick, he was at first known as a Super Hero In Training. He'd usually wear a T-shirt with the phrase written in magic marker, with the left-hand side of each word lined up vertically and the first letter larger than the rest, just to drive the point home.
  • Here are some initials that were attributed to Russo:
  • There's also the meaning behind the name TNA: Total Nonstop Action. This was actually a backronym; the name TNA originally stood for Tuesday Night All-stars, until In Demand rescheduled their show to Wednesdays shortly before their debut. Since they'd already done a lot of promotion and design using the letters TNA in their logo, they had to come up with something new to fit the acronym.
  • Hog-farming cousins Henry O. Godwin and Phineas I. Godwin.
  • Heel tax collector Irwin R. Schyster (aka Mike Rotunda).
  • David McLane has created three different women's wrestling promotions that use this trope: Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling, Women Of Wrestling, and Powerful Women of Wrestling.
    • This seems to be a requirement for starting a women's wrestling promotion; one surfaced in 1989, with the ludicrous name of Fabulous Ladies Appearing In Ring.
    • Another all-women's wrestling promotion exists called Bombshell Ladies Of Wrestling. "Girl Dynamite" Jennifer Blake wondered on Twitter if one lost a match there, did it make them a BLOW Jobber?
  • Trish Stratus' T & A: Test & Albert
  • Santino Marella did this once against the Corre by having a group known as APPLE or "Allied People Powered by Loathing Everything" you stand for, which consisted of him, Daniel Bryan, Mark Henry and Evan Bourne.
  • WSU has the team of Annie Social and Kimber Lee who refer to themselves as Chicks Using Nasty Tactics.
  • The stable of ex-members of The Corporation that assembled for a month against the Corporate Ministry in 1999 was called the Union of People You Oughta Respect, Son, although Mankind only used the name when the group debuted. For its short run, it was just called the Union.
  • Palmer Cannon, a politically correct UPN executive who had a brief run on SmackDown.
  • WAW Wrestling once had a stable of Juggalos called the Inner City Posse.
  • A common nickname for the Andre the Giant Battle Royal is the Andre Rousimoff Memorial Battle Royal, or ARMBAR. Chris Jericho would be proud.
  • The Undisputed Era: Cole, Fish, O'Reilly. CFO, the same acronym as Chief Financial Officer. Add Strong and you get CFO$, which goes further and references WWE's music composer duo from the Reality Era named after the original concept.
  • Truth Martini is a Life Intervention Expert.
  • The "CM" in "CM Punk" used to stand for "Chick Magnet", the name of a tag team he was in during his backyard wrestler days. Later on, he declared that it had no real meaning, but has humorously made up different stories and meanings for it when asked about it. ("Cookie Monster Punk takes no guff!", "Fear the power of Chuck Mosley Punk!", "Nothing is quite as excellent as the wrestling of Charles Montgomery Punk!"). John Morrison once "theorized" that the letters stood for "Craves Men".
  • Professional Gay Wrestling, a miniseries that's essentially the gay men's equivalent of GLOW above, features among its cast of stereotypes a Gay Conservative called Gregory Owen Peters.
  • Summer Rae, Charlotte Flair, and Sasha Banks' NXT trio, Beautiful Fierce Females ("BFFs").
  • Elias believes that WWE stands for Walk With Elias.
  • On SmackDown to help choose his next Intercontinental title opponent, AJ Styles (along with Joseph Park) displays his new Phenomenal Intercontinental Statistics System. (It's a work in progress).
  • In 2021, Nikki Cross took up a superhero gimmick and changed her name to Nikki A.S.H. (Almost a Super Hero.)
  • Randal Keith Orton's Finishing Move is called RKO.
  • During his tenure as the Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns once wore a t-shirt that reads "God Mode", where the "God" stands for "Greatness on a different level".
  • "My Jerkoff Friend" Maxwell Jacob Friedman, according to Chris Jericho during the build to Blood and Guts 2021. CM Punk had another idea: "My Jealous Friend" during the November 24, 2021 edition of Dynamite.

     Shows Of by Characters in Knitcraft, or Puppet Shows 
  • Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: the security & intelligence agency of the World Government is called SPECTRUM: it is never explained what this is an acronym of, or even if it is one, at all.
  • In the Dinosaurs two parter, "Nuts to War", when the four legged dinosaurs have disagreements to trade pistachios to two legged dinosaurs, The Council of Elders starts a campaign they call, We Are Right, which of course means starting a war. Much later when Earl finally disagrees with the war, he protests with a picket sign that reads on one side We Are Rong and on the other, Pistachio Eaters Against Chief Elders.
  • In The Muppet Show, Dudley Moore brings in the M.A.M.M.A., the Music And Mood Management Apparatus, a machine that plays any kind of music the scene requires. It isquickly resented by the Electric Mayhem for being a Job-Stealing Robot, and spends the episode annoying everyone until it is destroyed by Gonzo's bomb-defusing act.
  • S.A.M. from Sesame Street, which stands for Super Automatic Machine. Those who were severely freaked out by him as children would argue Satan's Automaton of Malice would be more accurate.

     Remote Audio Distribution In Operation, or Radio 
  • Nebulous features both the Key Environmental Non-Judgemental Taskforce, and the Legitimate Organisation Undertaking General Humanitarian Business Operations Requiring Optimum Unconditional Global Harmony. But then, people from K.E.N.T. have always hated people from L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H..
  • In an episode of The Goon Show, Neddy Seagoon was appointed to be Britain's Fog And Thick Smoke Officer.
    • In another episode, Major Bloodnok has a washcloth stuffed into his mouth by thieves who stole 10 Downing Street. Ned says, "These initials must mean Winston Churchill!" Bloodnok answers, "I hope so!"
  • One episode of Adventures in Odyssey features the Society for Mental Improvement and Living Enthusiastically, a nationwide organization bursting with Stepford SMILErs.
  • In one episode of Absolute Power (BBC), Charles is tasked with creating a name for a male pressure group. His efforts include British Association of Lovable LadS and GeneraL AsssociatioN for the Support of the Priapically ENdowed In Society.

    Cracking On Mindless Epitomes of Deliverable Yahoos, or Stand-Up Comedy 
  • George Carlin's strategy for taking out the terrorists after 9/11 was to deploy huge football fans in all the caves in Afghanistan after months of eating beans, cheese, cabbage, and beer. He called it the Flatulent Airborne Recovery Team.
  • Richard Herring regularly turns the titles of his shows into acronyms and insists on calling them by that name, often involving the crowd in a Call And Response. For instance, As It Occurs To me becomes 'AIOTM!', That Was Then, This Is Now becomes 'TWTTIN!', and This Morning With Richard Not Judy becomes 'TMWRNJ!'
  • In one stand-up routine, Dara Ó Briain talks about when he and his wife attended a pre-natal class while she was pregnant. Dara comments that such classes in England are run by the NCT, or National Childbirth Trust. He then points out that in Ireland NCT stands for "National Car Test".
    I, like a fuckin' idiot, forgot that, and walked out at the start of this tour saying, "Well I took my pregnant wife in for an NCT," and the whole room recoiled in horror, as if to go, "Why would you do that? Why would you take her into a garage and say, 'Jaysus, the handling is gone, she's all over the road! Mind you, the headlamps, the headlamps are better than I've ever seen them, don't touch them!'"
  • One of Jeff Dunham's puppets, his "manager" Sweet Daddy D, who dresses in unmistakable Pimp Duds, describes himself as a "Playa In the Management Profession". He then states that since he's the pimp, that makes Jeff the ho.
  • One of Jasper Carrott's best jokes was about an ultimate cleaning fluid called Best Universal Grit Grime and Effluent Remover, with the advertising strapline "If Persil doesn't brighten it, and Daz doesn't whiten it, BUGGER it!"

     Tools Of Young Satisfaction, or Toys 
  • The Cyber Forest [Fantasy Girls] series of mecha musume kits by Nuke Matrix make use of this trope for their naming conventions, being highly mechanical in design and following an animal theme. Of those released as of this writing there are:
    • F.O.X. Long Range Striker Unit, the first and the only one not to play by the trope.
    • Remote Attack Battle Base Info Tactician Lirly Bell.
    • Hurricane Assault Revenger: Prototype Yaeger Amelia Hartmann.
    • Storm Interceptor: Royal ENforcer Tanya Charybdis.
  • G.I. Joe:
    • There's M.A.R.S. (Military Armaments Research Syndicate), Destro's weapons dealing organization.
    • The short-lived spinoff Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles has the I.R.O.N. (Invasion Reconnaisance Occupation and Neutralization) Army. The following spinoff, G.I. Joe Extreme had S.K.A.R., Soldiers for Khaos, Anarchy and Ruin.
  • In 1983, there was the Kinkeshi, a line of Japanese collectable toys, marketed as "M.U.S.C.L.E." (Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere) in the States.
  • In Pinkie Cooper and the Jet Set Pets, Pinkie attends the World of Original Fashion academy — or W.O.O.F.
  • In the Transformers audio story "Espionage!!!!!", Starscream pretends to defect to the Autobots. Not trusting him, the Autobots decide to Feed the Mole and claim to have developed a new Decepticon tracking weapon called the Deuterium Orbital Laser Tracing System. The Decipticons take the bait and Optimus Prime can't help but mock them for not noticing the acronym sooner.

     Wide Entertainment By Very Interesting Digital Embedded Online Steams, or Web Videos 
  • Act Promptly: The Ache-ronyms miniact revolves around the contestants having to make up meanings for acronyms and use them in a sentence.
  • WOAH, a camp hosted by Luigi Kirby on Discord and Youtube (known as "Mario Kirby" on the latter platform), is an acronym standing for War Of All Heroes.
    • It also had a team made by Christmas Tree starting in Episode 11-2 that was an acronym made of acronyms, called A..C..R..O..N..Y..M.., which stands for:
      • A.N.O.T.H.E.R.
      • A Noble Opportunity That He Entirely Regards
      • C.L.E.V.E.R.​​
      • Cool Legendary Elegant Versatile Enemies Retreat
      • R.E.S.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.
      • ​Rightful Entities Solve Other Lucky Undefined Times In Orderly Nomination
      • O.N.
      • Oh No
      • N.O.B.L.E.
      • Nothing Ordains Bold Lads Empirically​
      • Y.E.A.R.L.O.N.G.
      • Youths Eternally Among Radiant Losers Observing Nothing Given
      • M.O.N.A.R.C.H.I.E.S.
      • Maniacal Obscurities Nationalize Agricultural Recognition Cherishing Helpful Idolarities Ending Separatism
      • According Luigi Kirby, this name fully spelt out exceeds Discord's character limit. He likely meant for channel names, as this is clearly not 2,000 characters.
    • ​WOAH's ongoing sequel, CRUSADE, is also an acronym, standing for Camp RPG Unbelievably Strikes Another Dangerous Entity.
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
    • Krillin says Frieza looks like a total "F.A.G.", and when Gohan is shocked, he clarifies that he meant "Freaky Alien Genotype".
    • In the second Bardock special, the prehistoric Saiyans heal Bardock with their Super Polymorphic Unleashing Gel, the acronym for which is pronounced "spooge".
  • Dream SMP:
    • WAP stands for "Worship And Prayer" by the founders of Church Prime, most commonly Tommy. This has led to a conversation involving Acronym Confusion over said acronym's more infamous meaning, Jschlatt (before his Presidential run), and a very disturbed TommyInnit.
    • The L'Manberg Flight and Aeronautical Organization building should tell you exactly what kind of attitude L'Manberg, or at least its members, had.
  • The Fat Electrician is well known (to the point it's on a good deal of his merchandise) for the phrase Stragecially Transfer Equipment to an Alternate Location, generally used when referring to members of the military stealing something.
  • French Baguette Intelligence abbreviates to 'FBI', which is a reference to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's founder Charles Joseph Bonaparte, a descendant of Napoléon Bonaparte.
  • Map Men:
    • One of the alternative names suggested for the USA in "Where is America?" is the United States of Sub-par Railways, or the USSR for short.
    • The Glossary of Geeky Terms in "You'll never guess the most popular internet country code" includes one for IBM, which stands for Irritable Bowel Movement.
  • Subverted with TCNick3 of Party Crashers, as he has admitted that the "T" and "C" in his username don't actually stand for anything, he just thought that those two letters sounded cool together. That doesn't stop his friends and fans from poking fun at what the letters could mean though, such as T being "The" or "Toxic" and C being "Carried" or "Cringe".
  • The old YouTube comedy sketch channel POYKPAC stood for "Pictures Of Your Kids Pooping And Crying"
  • RadicalSoda during his Pokemon Sword and Shield review decides to add a new segment. It doesn't go well.
    Radical Soda: It's Radicalsoda's Awesome Pokemon Evaluation! Or if we shorten that to an acronym- OH NO!!!
  • Schaffrillas Productions: In "Why Tamatoa is My Favorite Character Ever", the group protecting the pieces of Te Fiti's heart is called "The Guardians Of The Heart Pieces And Top Tier Youtubers". Pappy G quicky puts together that it spells "Gothpatty".
  • Smosh has done this more than once. Three examples:
    • From "How To Survive a Burglary", there's Always Silently Shut Doors In Case of Kleptomaniacs, or ASSDICK for short.
    • In "Stop Miley", there's Stopping Miley From Twerking And Acting Like An All Around Tool Bag, or SMFTAALAAATB for short.
    • From "F**k Spoilers!" (later retitled "No Spoilers!"), there's Douches In-Capable of Keeping Secrets, or DICKS for short. ("Don't talk to DICKS. Don't listen to DICKS. Don't touch DICKS. And whatever you do, don't let DICKS get near your mouth.")
  • Stampy's Lovely World: In Episode 748, "Splendid Shipyard", Stampy names the yacht he spent the two previous episodes constructing the 'Yacht of Amazing Courage and Historic Triumphs', officially shortened as "Y.A.C.H.T".
    Stampy: So there we go, my yacht is called… "YACHT". (laughs)
  • Zero Punctuation has a semi-running gag in the early seasons that takes a paragraph-long concept and turns it into an initialism that is still a Wall of Text, only now it's an impossible to remember, contextless screed of letters and periods.

    Mismatching In Specific Categories or Other 
  • Some page titles on this wiki:
  • One variety of Urban Legends is known as "Xeroxlore" (also known as "Photocopylore"), printed items such as joke sheets, fake "warnings to the community," etc., that are photocopied and then circulated around business offices, schools and churches. Xeroxlore has become more and more obsolete as Technology Marches On, but some of these items are still around. One particular brand of Xeroxlore is a spoof memo with the subject line "Special(ized) High Intensity Training." An example can be found here; there are many others.
  • If someone calls you a "chicken" just because you refuse to do drugs, you could think of it as standing for "Cool, Honest, Intelligent, Clear headed, Keen, Energetic, and Not interested in Drugs". Realistically, it's unlikely that they'll conveniently pick the particular word you memorized a complimentary backronym for in advance, and far more likely that they won't have a problem with your refusal at all. But you still could!
  • Keebler's popular E.L. Fudge cookies, sandwich cookies shaped like a Keebler Elf. That's E as in Everyone, L as in Loves, Fudge.
  • Marvel Comics's nickname for their chief rival in the comic book industry, DC Comics, is the "Distinguished Competition".
  • An Urban Legend has it that the word "nonce" as British slang for a child molester came from the phrase "Not On Normal Communal Exercise", referring to the fact that convicted pedophiles had to be segregated from the regular prison population lest they meet a Vigilante Execution (prisoners notoriously being ruthless towards those who hurt children the world over).
  • The online marine biology database World Registry of Marine Species (WoRMS).
  • Not exactly a name, but a password: In the German illustrated magazine "Der Spiegel" there was a satire about people making lame passwords because they couldn't remember a decently unguessable one (or use a password app). He then gave the well known advice to use the first letters of an easily remembered sentence (his example looking a bit contrived, Genre Savvy geeks at that point already knew the punchline). For increased security, one should add "a randomly chosen semi-celebrity", which happened to be the most carefully chosen director Jim Sharman, and concatenate the birth date. Now, we have already a more contrived setup than the average Pervers Pépère strip and it's time to reveal the resulting punchline/acronym/password: Passwort12345.
  • The word "worship", according to the Jakarta Praise Community Church, stands for "Wholehearted, Obedient, Relational, Spiritual, Honor, Intimate, and Proclamation".
  • The Disney Theme Parks Disney California Adventure in Anaheim and Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris both feature a Marvel Cinematic Universe-themed land named the Avengers C.A.M.P.U.S., which is the Centralized Assembly Mobilized to Prepare, Unite, and Safeguard. (Hey, what do you expect from the franchise that includes S.H.I.E.L.D.?) The C.A.M.P.U.S.es also feature the ride W.E.B. Slingers (themed around Spider-Man, naturally), which is set in a group called the Worldwide Engineering Brigade.
  • There's a popular legend that the F-word is an acronym for either For (or Forced) Unlawful Carnal Knowledge or Fornication Under Consent (or Command) of the King. There's not any evidence for either of these (the second one arguably doesn't even make sense, since fornication is illicit sex, so royally-approved fornication is an oxymoron), and the earliest recorded examples aren't even always spelled with both the C and the K. It could be argued that "Fornication Under Consent/Command of the King is a justification ("basically, it means married sex and therefore it's not really a swear, so please don't wash my mouth out with soap"), and "Forced, Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" explains why "fuck" is the Great Grandpappy of offensive words.
  • In this Nature article, Phil Williamson suggests making a rating site for websites that claim to be scientific and calls it Scientific Integrity and Honesty Tracker.
  • There's a cocktail that's made out of a shot of gin, rum, two shots of evervlear, and a shot of apple scnapps. It's not, itself G.R.E.E.N., nor does "apple schnapps" start with an "N," but after you drink it, you won't care.
  • If a machine suffers a Total Inability To Support Usual Parameters, you could say that it has "gone tits up."
  • If you're reading a periodical in the supermarket checkout line, the teller's coworkers might say "Hi, Mitch!" regardless of what their colleauge's nametag says. Who's Mitch? None other than the Magazine In The Customer's Hand; meant to remind each other to sell the magazines rather than assume the customer brought it with them. It used to be "Book In The Customer's Hand," but you can guess how that went.


Alternative Title(s): Backronym, Fun With Initialisms, FWA

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Trotters Independent Traders

Del Boy wants to register Trotters Independent Traders as a legitimate company, but realises there may be a problem with the name.

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