RECURSIVE ACRONYM

A 'recursive acronym' (or occasionally 'recursive initialism') is an abbreviation which refers to itself in the expression for which it stands. Due to the nature of the English language, which would infinitely recurse left-recursive phrases, recursive abbreviations are circular definitions.

Contents

Computer-related examples

Non-technical examples

Fictional examples

References

See also

Computer-related examples

In computing, an early tradition in the hacker community (especially at MIT) 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"), an editor for MagicSix. This inspired the two MIT Lisp Machine editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially").
Noted efforts (which nearly all look suspiciously like a simple acronym with an arbitrary letter stuck on the front to make it read better phonetically) include:

★ Allegro — Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines (note: the acronym was originally Atari Low LEvel Game ROutines until development shifted away from the Atari ST)

★ AMARA - Amara Means A Recursive Acronym

★ BUMP — Bump Up My Post

★ CAVE — Cave Automatic Virtual Environment

★ Cygnus — Cygnus, Your GNU Support

★ ELLE - ELLE Looks Like Emacs

★ FIAIF - FIAIF Is An Intelligent Firewall

★ FIG - Fig Is Good

★ GEECS — GEECS for Electronics Engineering Computers and Science

★ giFT — giFT: Internet File Transfer

★ GiNaC — GiNaC is Not a CAS

★ GNE — GNE's Not an Encyclopedia

★ GNU — GNU's Not Unix

★ HERBIS — Herbis is the Erudite Recorded Botanical Information Synthesizer

★ KIEL — Kiel Integrated Environment for Layout

★ LAME — LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder

★ LIAR, a Scheme compiler — LIAR Imitates Apply Recursively

★ LINE — LINE is Not an Emulator

★ MICO — MICO Is COrba

★ MINC — MINC Is Not C

★ MINCE — MINCE is Not Complete Emacs

★ MINDY — MINDY Is Not Dylan Yet (MINDY interpreter of the Dylan language)

★ MiNT — MiNT is Not TOS (later changed to "MiNT is Now TOS")

★ MINT — MINT Is Not TRAC

★ Mung — Mung Until No Good

★ Nagios — Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood

★ NiL — NiL Isn't Liero

★ PHP — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (originally ''"Personal Home Page" tools'', officially changed for PHP 3)

★ PIPS — PIPS Is POSIX on Symbian

★ PLD — PLD Linux Distribution (originally "Polish(ed) Linux Distribution")

★ RPM — RPM Package Manager (originally "Red Hat Package Manager")

★ RNP Arrays - RNP (Ratios) are Not PDN.

★ SAMI — SAMI is Another Model of the Ionosphere

★ SCInterface — SCInterface Control Interface

★ Scaled — Scaled Composites: Advanced Link to Efficient Development

★ SPARQL — SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language

★ TIARA — TIARA Is A Recursive Acronym

★ TiLP — TiLP is a Linking Program

★ TINA — Tina Is No Acronym

★ TTP — The TTP Project (From Dilbert)

★ TINN — Tinn Is Not Notepad

★ TinNS — TinNS is not a Neocron Server

★ TRM — TRM Recognizes Music

★ UIRA — UIRA Isn't a Recursive Acronym

★ Wine — Wine Is Not an Emulator

★ Xinha — Xinha is not htmlarea

★ XINU — Xinu Is Not Unix

★ XNA — XNA's Not Acronymed, a Microsoft game development framework

★ YAML — YAML Ain't Markup Language (initially "Yet Another Markup Language")

★ YLEM - YLEM Lisp Environment for Music (a music composition system written in Common Lisp)

★ ZINC — ZINC is not commercial, a free database for virtual screening

★ Zinf — Zinf Is Not FreeA
★ p

★ Zombie — Zombie-Oriented Machine-Being Interface Engine
The GNU Hurd project is named with a mutually recursive acronym: "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons," and "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth."
The GNU Brain project is another mutually recursive acronym: "Brain" stands for "Brian relates any independent node" and "Brian" itself stands for "Brain implements a network".
RPM and PHP were originally conventional initialisms which were later redefined recursively. They are not true backronyms, however, as the names were already abbreviations and are pronounced as initials rather than as words.
Jini claims the distinction of being the first (and possibly only) 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.

Non-technical examples

Recursive acronyms are not limited to computing terminology. For example, some corporations have been named or renamed in this way:

★ BWIA — BWIA West Indies Airways (formerly British West Indian Airways)

★ EGL - Eagle Global Logistics

★ FACT — Facts Are Correct Things

★ FOIL - Foil over incandesent light

★ GES — GES Exposition Services (formerly Greyhound Exposition Services)

★ OIL — Oil India Limited (not really self-referential since oil is a word anyway)

★ SAAB — Saab Automobile Aktiebolaget (Formerly Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget.)

★ TAP Air Portugal — in Portuguese, however, TAP is an acronym for ''Transportes Aéreos de Portugal'' and is not recursive

★ VISA — Visa International Service Association

★ LINK (UK) — Link Interchange NetworK, the UK ATM switching organisation.
There are also some organizations that employ recursive acronyms:

★ MOMS Club — MOMS Offering Moms Support

★ RESPECT — Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community, and Trade unionism (also a backronym)

Fictional examples

★ KOS-MOS — Kosmos Obey Strategical Multiple Operation Systems, from the video game series Xenosaga.

★ In the BBC series Look Around You, a parody of British educational television programs from the Seventies, MATHS was said to stand for "Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin".

★ A recursive initialism appeared in a Dilbert comic strip, in which Dilbert states that the TTP project refers to 'T'he 'T'TP 'P'roject (this is also a triply-redundant case of RAS syndrome).

★ In Twin Peaks, 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 as "A.W.O.L. without leave".

References

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See also

★ RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome)

★ Acronyms

★ Backronyms and list of backronyms