A recursive acronym is an acronym

Acronym and initialism

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...

 or initialism that refers to itself

Recursion

Recursion is the process of repeating items in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are exactly parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of infinite recursion. The term has a variety of meanings specific to a variety of disciplines ranging from...

 in the expression for which it stands. The term was first used in print in April 1986.

Computer-related examples

In computing

Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...

, an early tradition in the hacker community (especially at MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

) was to choose acronyms and abbreviations that referred humorously to themselves or to other abbreviations. Perhaps the earliest example in this context, from about 1977 or 1978, is TINT ("TINT Is Not TECO

Text Editor and Corrector

TECO is a text editor originally developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s, after which it was modified by 'just about everybody'...

"), an editor for MagicSix

MagicSix

MagicSix was an operating system for Interdata 7/32 minicomputers. It was used at MIT's Architecture Machine Group as the platform for the Aspen Movie Map....

. This inspired the two MIT Lisp Machine

Lisp machine

Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations...

 editors called EINE

EINE

EINE was the Emacs text editor for Lisp machines. It was developed by Daniel Weinreb and Mike McMahon in the late 1970s, with a command set the same as the original Emacs written in TECO by Richard Stallman...

 ("EINE Is Not Emacs

Emacs

Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...

") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). These were followed by Richard Stallman

Richard Stallman

Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...

's GNU

GNU

GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...

 (GNU's Not Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

). Many others also include negatives, such as denials that the thing defined is or resembles something else (which the thing defined does in fact resemble or is even derived from), to indicate that, despite the similarities, it was distinct from the program it was based on.

An earlier example appears in a 1976 textbook on data structures, in which the pseudo-language SPARKS is used to define the algorithms discussed in the text. "SPARKS" is claimed to be a non-acronymic name, but "several cute ideas have been suggested" as expansions of the name. One of the suggestions is "Smart Programmers Are Required to Know SPARKS".

Notable examples

Noted examples include:

• ACME - Acme Company Makes Everything (also A Company that Makes Everything)
• AROS
  Aros
  Aros may refer to:*Aros , a river in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium*AROS Research Operating System, a free software implementation of AmigaOS* Aros, the original Viking name of Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark...
  
   — AROS Research Operating System (originally Amiga Research Operating System)
• Allegro
  Allegro library
  Allegro is a free and open source software library for video game development.The functionality of the library includes support for basic 2D graphics, image manipulation, text output, audio output, midi music, input and timers, as well as additional routines for fixed-point and floating-point...
  
   — Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines (early versions for Atari ST were called "Atari Low LEvel Game ROutines")
• Bamf
  Bamf
  Bamf , originally Bampf, is a onomatopoeic term from the Marvel Universe.-Sound:"Bamf" in the Marvel Universe is onomatopoeia relating to the fictional character Nightcrawler and the resulting sound he makes when he teleports. The sound is caused by air rushing into the space where Nightcrawler's...
  
   - BAMF Application Matching Framework
• CAVE
  Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
  A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to three, four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube...
  
   — Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
• Cygnus
  Cygnus Solutions
  Cygnus Solutions, originally Cygnus Support, was founded in 1989 by John Gilmore, Michael Tiemann and David Henkel-Wallace to provide commercial support for free software...
  
   — Cygnus, Your GNU Support
• EINE
  EINE
  EINE was the Emacs text editor for Lisp machines. It was developed by Daniel Weinreb and Mike McMahon in the late 1970s, with a command set the same as the original Emacs written in TECO by Richard Stallman...
  
   — EINE Is Not Emacs
• DIMS — DIMS Ingenius Musical Solutions
• GiNaC — GiNaC is Not a CAS (Computer Algebra System)
• GNE
  GNUpedia
  GNUPedia was a project to create a free content encyclopedia under the auspices of the Free Software Foundation...
  
   — GNE's Not an Encyclopedia
• GNU
  GNU
  GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
  
   — GNU's Not Unix
• FIJI
  FIJI (software)
  Fiji is an Open Source image processing package based on ImageJ.Fiji's main purpose is to provide a distribution of ImageJ with many bundled plugins. As with Ubuntu, Fiji has an integrated updating system...
  
   — FIJI Is Just ImageJ
• INX — INX's Not X (a UNIX clone)
• JACK
  JACK Audio Connection Kit
  JACK is a professional sound server daemon that provides real-time, low latency connections for both audio and MIDI data between applications that implement its API...
  
   — JACK Audio Connection Kit
• JOE
  Joe's Own Editor
  JOE or Joe's Own Editor is a terminal-based text editor for Unix systems, available under the GPL. It is designed to be easy to use.JOE is distributed in most major Linux distributions and open-source BSD systems.- Description of features :...
  
   — Joe's Own Editor
• KGS
  KGS Go Server
  The KGS Go Server, known until 2006 as the Kiseido Go Server, is a game server first developed in 1999 and firmly established in 2000 for people to play Go. The system was developed by William M. Shubert and its code is now written entirely in Java...
  
   — KGS Go Server
• LAME
  LAME
  LAME is a free software codec used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format.-History:The name LAME is a recursive acronym for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". Around mid-1998, Mike Cheng created LAME 1.0 as a set of modifications against the "8Hz-MP3" encoder source code...
  
   — LAME Ain't an MP3
  MP3
  MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
  
   Encoder
• LiVES
  LiVES
  LiVES is a free software video editing software and VJ tool, released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. There are binary versions available for most popular Linux distributions...
  
   — LiVES is a Video Editing System
• MOST
  Most
  Most is the capital city of the Most District, situated between the Czech Central Mountains and the Ore Mountains, approximately northwest of Prague along the Bílina River and southwest of Ústí nad Labem.-Etymology:...
  
   — MOST Official Sneeze Tracking
• MiNT
  MiNT
  MiNT is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST and its successors. Together with the free system components fVDI , XaAES , and TeraDesk , MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that is capable of multitasking.MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as...
  
   — MiNT is Not TOS (later changed to "MiNT is Now TOS")
• MINT
  Freemacs
  Freemacs is a small, programmable computer text editor for MS-DOS with some degree of compatibility with GNU Emacs. Written by Russ Nelson and later maintained by Jim Hall, Freemacs is currently distributed under the GPL in the FreeDOS project....
  
   — MINT Is Not TRAC
  TRAC programming language
  TRAC is a programming language developed in the early 1960s by Calvin Mooers. It was one of three "first languages" recommended by Ted Nelson in Computer Lib....
  
  
• Mung
  Mung
  Mung is computer jargon for "to make repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item." It was coined in 1958 in the Tech Model Railroad Club at the Massachusetts Institute of...
  
   — Mung Until No Good
• Nagios
  Nagios
  Nagios is a popular open source computer system and network monitoring software application. It watches hosts and services, alerting users when things go wrong and again when they get better....
  
   — Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood (which is a reference to the previous name of Nagios, namely Netsaint)
• NiL
  Nil
  Nil is a word commonly used to mean nothing or zero; it is one of several names for the number 0.It may also refer to:- Computer programming :...
  
   — NiL Isn't Liero
• Ninja-ide
  Ninja-ide
  NINJA-IDE , is a cross-platform integrated development environment designed to build Python applications....
  
   - Ninja-IDE Is Not Just Another IDE
• PHP
  PHP
  PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
  
   — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (originally "Personal Home Page")
• P.I.P.S. — P.I.P.S. Is POSIX on Symbian
• PINE
  Pine (e-mail client)
  Pine is a freeware, text-based email client developed at the University of Washington. The first version of this client was written in 1989. Source code was available for only the Unix version under a license written by the University of Washington...
  
   — PINE Is Nearly Elm
  Elm (e-mail client)
  Elm, is a text-based email client commonly found on Unix systems. It became popular as one of the first email clients to use a text user interface, and as a utility with freely-available source code. The name elm originated from the phrase ELectronic Mail.Dave Taylor developed elm while working...
  
  , originally; PINE now officially stands for "Pine Internet News and E-mail"
• PNG — PNG's Not GIF
  GIF
  The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....
  
   (officially "Portable Network Graphics")
• RPM
  RPM Package Manager
  RPM Package Manager is a package management system. The name RPM variously refers to the .rpm file format, files in this format, software packaged in such files, and the package manager itself...
  
   — RPM Package Manager (originally "Red Hat
  Red Hat
  Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
  
   Package Manager")
• Scaled
  Scaled Composites
  Scaled Composites is an aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman that is located at the Mojave Spaceport, Mojave, California, United States...
  
   — Scaled Composites: Advanced Link to Efficient Development
• SPARQL
  SPARQL
  SPARQL is an RDF query language; its name is an acronym that stands for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language. It was made a standard by the RDF Data Access Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium, and considered as one of the key technologies of semantic web...
  
   — SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language
• TiLP
  TiLP
  TiLP2 is a linking program that sends/receives files from Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators. TiLP2 works on many different operating systems like Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows and so on...
  
   — TiLP is a Linking Program
• TIP — TIP isn't Pico (name for earliest versions of nano
  Nano (text editor)
  nano is a text editor for Unix-like computing systems or operating environments using a command line interface. It emulates the Pico text editor, part of the Pine email client, and also provides additional functionality....
  
   text editor)
• UIRA  — UIRA Isn't a Recursive Acronym
• Wine
  Wine (software)
  Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
  
   — Wine Is Not an Emulator
• XBMC — XBMC Media Center (originally Xbox Media Center)
• XINU
  Xinu
  Xinu is a Unix-like operating system originally developed by Douglas Comer for instructional purposes at Purdue University in the 1980s. The name is both recursive, and is "Unix" spelled backwards...
  
   — Xinu Is Not Unix
• XNA
  Microsoft XNA
  Microsoft XNA is a set of tools with a managed runtime environment provided by Microsoft that facilitates video game development and management. XNA attempts to free game developers from writing "repetitive boilerplate code" and to bring different aspects of game production into a single system...
  
   — XNA's Not Acronymed
• YAML
  YAML
  YAML is a human-readable data serialization format that takes concepts from programming languages such as C, Perl, and Python, and ideas from XML and the data format of electronic mail . YAML was first proposed by Clark Evans in 2001, who designed it together with Ingy döt Net and Oren Ben-Kiki...
  
   — YAML Ain't Markup Language (initially "Yet Another Markup Language")
• Zinf
  Zinf
  Zinf is a free audio player released under the GNU General Public License. It runs on Unix-like operating systems and Windows.Zinf is a continuation of the FreeAmp project and uses the same source code.-Technical features:...
  
   — Zinf Is Not Freeamp
• ZWEI
  ZWEI
  ZWEI was an early Emacs-like text editor written by Daniel Weinreb and Mike McMahon for the Lisp machine. It is the successor of the editor EINE . Innovations by it include programmability in Lisp, and a new and more flexible method of internally representing buffers...
  
   — ZWEI Was EINE
  EINE
  EINE was the Emacs text editor for Lisp machines. It was developed by Daniel Weinreb and Mike McMahon in the late 1970s, with a command set the same as the original Emacs written in TECO by Richard Stallman...
  
   Initially

Mutually recursive or otherwise special

• The GNU Hurd
  GNU Hurd
  GNU Hurd is a free software Unix-like replacement for the Unix kernel, released under the GNU General Public License. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation...
  
   project is named with a mutually recursive acronym: "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemon
  Daemon (computer software)
  In Unix and other multitasking computer operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user...
  
  s", and "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth."
• The GNUBrain project is another mutually recursive acronym: "Brain" stands for "Brian Relates Any Independent Node" and "Brian" stands for "BRain Implements A Network".
• RPM, PHP and YAML were originally conventional initialisms which were later redefined recursively. They are examples of, or may be referred to as, backronymization, where the official meaning of an acronym or initialism is changed.
• Jini
  Jini
  Jini , also called Apache River, is a network architecture for the construction of distributed systems in the form of modular co-operating services.Originally developed by Sun, Jini was released under an open source license...
  
   claims the distinction of being the first recursive anti-acronym. 'Jini Is Not Initials'. It might, however, be more properly termed an anti-backronym because the term "Jini" never stood for anything in the first place. The more recent "XNA
  Microsoft XNA
  Microsoft XNA is a set of tools with a managed runtime environment provided by Microsoft that facilitates video game development and management. XNA attempts to free game developers from writing "repetitive boilerplate code" and to bring different aspects of game production into a single system...
  
  ", on the other hand, was deliberately designed that way.
• Most recursive acronyms are recursive on the first letter, which is therefore an arbitrary choice, often selected for reasons of humour, ease of pronunciation, or consistency with an earlier acronym that used the same letters for different words, such as PHP: PHP Hypertext Preprocessor, which was originally "Personal home page". However YOPY
  Yopy
  The Yopy was the name of a series of Personal Digital Assistants made by GMate Corporation, also used as a popular PDA Phone in Korea and based on the Linux operating system.- Overview :...
  
  , "Your own personal YOPY" is recursive on the last letter (hence the last letter had to be the same as the first).

Non-technical examples

Recursive acronyms are not limited to computing terminology. For example:

• TIARA — TIARA is a recursive acronym (or This Is A Recursive Acronym)
• GURGA - Group of Useless Recursive and Gurga Acronyms.

Some organization

Organization

An organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...

s have been named or renamed in this way:

• BWIA — BWIA West Indies Airways
  BWIA West Indies Airways
  BWIA West Indies Airways Limited, known locally as "B-wee", was the national airline of Trinidad and Tobago. BWIA was, at the end of its operations, the largest airline operating out of the Caribbean, operating direct services to the USA, Canada, and the UK...
  
   (formerly British West Indian Airways)
• GES — GES Exposition Services (formerly Greyhound Exposition Services)
• LINK
  LINK (UK)
  LINK is a shared interbank network of automated teller machines operating in the United Kingdom. The network counts 37 member institutions, of which many are various banks and building societies issuing LINK ATM cards, and the remainder are independent ATM operators who do not issue cards...
  
   — Link Interchange NetworK, the UK ATM switching organization.
• Saab
  Saab Automobile
  Saab Automobile AB, better known as Saab , is a Swedish car manufacturer owned by Dutch automobile manufacturer Swedish Automobile NV, formerly Spyker Cars NV. It is the exclusive automobile Royal Warrant holder as appointed by the King of Sweden...
  
   — Saab Automobile
  Saab Automobile
  Saab Automobile AB, better known as Saab , is a Swedish car manufacturer owned by Dutch automobile manufacturer Swedish Automobile NV, formerly Spyker Cars NV. It is the exclusive automobile Royal Warrant holder as appointed by the King of Sweden...
  
   Aktiebolaget, formerly part of Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, also known as Saab
  Saab
  Saab AB is a Swedish aerospace and defence company, founded in 1937. From 1947 to 1990 it was the parent company of automobile manufacturer Saab Automobile, and between 1968 and 1995 the company was in a merger with commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania, known as Saab-Scania.-History:"Svenska...
  
  .
• ADAP — ADAP Discount Auto Parts
• Heil — Heil Environmental Industries Limited, maker of garbage trucks
• KLuB
  KLUB
  KLUB is a radio station serving the Victoria, Texas, area with an album oriented rock format. It is under ownership of Townsquare Media.-External links:*...
  
   — Klub Linux Bandung (Linux Club of Bandung
  Bandung
  Bandung is the capital of West Java province in Indonesia, and the country's third largest city, and 2nd largest metropolitan area in Indonesia, with a population of 7.4 million in 2007. Located 768 metres above sea level, approximately 140 km southeast of Jakarta, Bandung has cooler...
  
   city)
• VISA
  Visa
  Visa or VISA may refer to:* Visa , a document issued by a country's government allowing the holder to enter or to leave that country...
  
   - VISA International Service Association

Fictional examples

• In Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
  Gödel, Escher, Bach
  Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is a book by Douglas Hofstadter, described by his publishing company as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll"....
  
  , published 1979, Douglas Hofstadter
  Douglas Hofstadter
  Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
  
   uses the acronym GOD, 'GOD Over Djinn'. As a genie explains to Achilles, GOD
  Göd
  - Industry :Göd is famous for its thriving tourism. It has a thermal spa open almost 365 days a year with its water already declared as rich in minerals...
  
   stands for GOD Over Djinn, remarking that "GOD can never be fully expanded." In the German translation it is rendered as "ZEUS ewig über Schinn", meaning "Zeus eternally over Djinn".
• KOS-MOS — Kosmos Obey Strategical Multiple Operation Systems, from the video game series Xenosaga
  Xenosaga
  is a series of science fiction video games developed by Monolith Soft and published by Namco Bandai. Xenosaga's main story is in the form of a trilogy of PlayStation 2 video games. There have been three spin-off games and an anime adaptation. The Xenosaga series serves as a spiritual successor to...
  
  .
• A recursive initialism appeared in a Dilbert
  Dilbert
  Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...
  
  comic strip, in which Dilbert states that the TTP project refers to The TTP Project (this is also an infinitely-redundant case of RAS syndrome
  RAS syndrome
  RAS syndrome , also known as PNS syndrome or RAP phrases , refers to the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words...
  
  ).
• In the TV show Twin Peaks
  Twin Peaks
  Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
  
  , Laura Palmer figured that her nemesis, Bob, was an acronym for "Beware of Bob".
• In the Archie Comics series Sonic the Hedgehog, the digital son of Eggman is named A.D.A.M., which has two meanings, one of which is "A.D.A.M. Determines Anonymous' Movements".
• In an episode of M*A*S*H, Radar O'Reilly refers to A.W.O.L.
  Desertion
  In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
  
   as "A.W.O.L. without official leave".
• In the DC Comics series Atari Force
  Atari Force
  Atari Force was the name of two comic book series published by DC Comics from 1982 to 1986. Both were loosely based on trademarks of Atari, Inc.- Publication history :...
  
  , ATARI originally stood for "Atari Technology And Research Institute," though this was changed to "Advanced Technology And Research Institute" in later issues.
• In The Simpsons
  The Simpsons
  The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
  
  episode That 90's Show
  That 90's Show
  "That '90s Show" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons nineteenth season. It was first broadcast on January 27, 2008. Kurt Loder and "Weird Al" Yankovic both guest star as themselves, this being the second time for Yankovic...
  
  , Homer defines "GRUNGE" as Guitar Rock Utilizing Nihilist Grunge Energy.
• In The Simpsons
  The Simpsons
  The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
  
  episode The Food Wife
  The Food Wife
  "The Food Wife" is the fifth episode of the twenty-third season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on November 13, 2011, and was seen by around 7.5 million people during this broadcast. In the episode, Homer feels left out when Marge, Bart,...
  
  , Ned defines "SPORTS" (which had just been given as the antecedent for the S in the acronym GAMES) as Strict Parental Oversight Rather Than Sports.
• A partial example from Look Around You
  Look Around You
  Look Around You is a British television comedy series devised and written by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz, and, in the first series, narrated by Nigel Lambert...
  
   exists. In the programme Maths is said to stand for Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin.
• In his 2011 book That Is All, John Hodgman
  John Hodgman
  John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
  
   suggests that the word antidisestablishmentarianism
  Antidisestablishmentarianism
  Antidisestablishmentarianism is a political position that originated in 19th-century Britain in opposition to proposals for the disestablishment of the Church of England, that is, to remove the Anglican Church's status as the state church of England, Ireland, and Wales.The establishment was...
  
   began as an acronym for "A National Trust In Defense of Institutional, Strongly Establish State Theology Against Barbaric Laicization (Including Secular Humanists Mocking English National Tradition) And Resisting Increasing Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism. Need I say More?".

Mnemonic Devices

A word that is formed by taking the initials of a phrase is only an acronym if the word is spelled that way for that reason. If the word exists first, and the phrase is simply a mnemonic device for remembering the word, then the word is not an acronym. An example is genealogy, the root word of genealogists. Although these are not acronyms, recursive or otherwise, they may appear to be recursive acronyms, because of mnemonic devices such as:

Genealogists Examine Needed Evidence At Lots Of Grave Yards

Genealogists Evidently Needing Endless Ancestors Look Obsessively in Grave Yards

See also

• RAS syndrome
  RAS syndrome
  RAS syndrome , also known as PNS syndrome or RAP phrases , refers to the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words...
  
   (Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome)
• Acronyms
• Backronym
  Backronym
  A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology....
  
  s
• Anti-acronym