Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?

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Article #4281

#4281

From: Paul Eggert
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 00:00

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rosalia@cygnus.co.uk writes:

> the OED ... *does* have an entry for ``acronym'',
> and mentions that it the word was invented in the US in the 1940s.
> The etymology is unknown.

It's odd if the OED doesn't have the etymology for ``acronym'', since
it's pretty straightforward: from the Greek _akros_ ``at the top,
point, or end'' (as in ``acropolis'') and the Greek _onyma_ ``name''
(as in ``antonym'').

That etymology applies almost as well if we take the _last_ letter of
each word, which would lead to some interesting acronym changes.
For example, ``STX'' is the recursive reverse-acronym for ``stx'S noT uniX''.
Also, with reverse acronyms your domain name would change
from cygnus.co.uk to cygnus.co.dm.

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From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert)
Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?
Date: 1997/06/11
Message-ID: <5nnjvd$pnk$1@shade.twinsun.com>
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