Acronym-etymologies

[Mark A Mandel]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Your Name (who really ought to change his e-mailer
settings to insert his name, Horst Conrad, here) wrote:

#dear Jim Landau,

Your reply came to the whole list, which is appropriate; and you should
be getting two copies of this reply, one through the list and one
directly to you via my cc: line. That's not standard procedure, but
since you're new here I thought it best to be sure that you actually are
subscribing (if you aren't, you'll only get the cc copy).

#In some of your eMails I red the word 'backronym'. I think it is also a an
#acronym and I try to find the way back.
#---> Does it mean, that someone created an interesting acronym (with no
#meaning) and searched for some words to form give this acronym a suitable
#long interpretation?

Yes, that's what "backronym" means.

#Please excuse my english.
#
#By the way:
#---> Do you know if there exists also a german discussion-group like your's
#in the internet?

If you don't mind: that should be "yours", with no apostrophe. The
series is
        mine
        yours
        his
        hers
        (its)
        ours
        (yours)
        theirs
 with never an apostrophe.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large