Acronyms (was: Phat(t), etc)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>'I do doubt "fubar" as a
>genuine acronym because the supposed expansion includes the word "all"
>which doesn't really belong.'
>
>'Beyond all recognition' is a perfectly good idiom for me; ....

I concede this point.

It's not sufficient for the idiom to look good to many people or even to
most people in 2004; the question is whether it was routinely used pre-1940
... and it WAS quite routinely used, according to quick text search which I
should have done before making any remark (sorry) ... I did some sort of
search on this years ago, with a different result, probably because of
inadequate databases and/or errors on my part.

I withdraw this objection.

I'm glad somebody is keeping me honest.

-- Doug Wilson