Phat [was Re: gay/ghey/ghay]

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>(Can anyone
> > think of any other nontechnical terms - not initialisms like
> > "TGIF" -  that have acronymic origins?)

I guess it depends on what's labeled "technical". There's "awol", there's
"scuba", there's "moped" if you loosen up the definition of "acronym", some
more.

But there aren't too many in conventional use really.

I doubt that "snafu" is an 'honest' acronym etymologically (which would
require that there was a previously existing expression "situation normal
..."): likely the word was invented to imitate "snag", "snarl", etc., and
then assigned an expansion as an imaginary origin: but of course I could be
wrong again.

-- Doug Wilson