T.I.P. acronym--1895

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:43:23 -0500, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

>>Maybe, but it's surprising to me that they were even thinking
>>acronymically as early as 1895.
>
>I asked a related question here some time back about a very dubious
>acronym much earlier (not in English but mentioned in English sources):
>
>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0204A&L=ads-l&P=R912
>
>If there are backronyms (bogus acronyms) can true acronyms be far
>behind?

The acronymic interpretation of "hep" as the Crusader's cry "Hierosolyma
est perdita" ("Jerusalem is lost") is an interesting case -- the OED dates
it to 1839, twenty years after the "Hep! Hep! riots" against Jews in
Hamburg, Frankfurt, and other German cities.

-----
hep, int.
[Said to be f. the initials of Hierosolyma Est Perdita;
or, the cry of a goatherd.]

Usu. hep, hep! The cry of those who persecuted Jews in the 19th century.
Also attrib.

1839 Penny Cycl. XIII. 122/1 They [sc. the Jews] were massacred at the cry
of 'Hep', 'Hep', the initials of the words 'Hierosolyma est perdita'.
-----

Cecil Adams <http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_241b.html> discusses
this and finds it much more likely that "hep" came from the herder's cry.
But the OED's 1839 cite shows that the acronymic explanation was being
given not too long after the German riots.  Perhaps there were
anti-Semitic tracts floating around Germany at the time of the riots
giving the Crusader story, thus popularizing the "Hep!" cry.  Or perhaps
it was simply explained this way after the fact by observers trying to
link the riots to earlier expressions of anti-Semitism.

An earlier backronym in English is "cabal", linked to the ministerial
cabinet of Charles II, c. 1670: Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley,
Lauderdale.  Though "cabal" derives from Hebrew "Kabbalah", it came to
mean any kind of suspiciously secret matter, and by the mid-17th Century
it had already developed a secondary meaning of "a small body of persons
engaged in secret or private machination or intrigue" (see OED defs. 3-6).
 The coincidence of the names in the CABAL Cabinet cemented this meaning
as the primary one.

I'm not sure, though, of the extent to which the ministerial acronym was
later presumed to have been the *source* of the word (rather than simply
reinforcing one sense of the word).  Here's a Making of America cite from
1876 suggesting that the acronymic explanation was taken seriously:

-----
http://tinyurl.com/6shg4
Lieber, Francis. _Manual of political ethics_, 1876.
The word cabal, as is well known, is now generally believed, according to
Hume, ch. 65, to have been composed of the letters with which the names of
the five dangerous ministers of the time began,-- namely, Clifford,
Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. (Burnet, Own Times, an.
1672.) Others derive it from the Hebrew Cabala, denoting a mysterious
philosophy brought from Egypt. [It is certain that cabal was used to
denote a faction or junto before the time of Charles II. It was borrowed
from the French, who derived it from Cabala.]
-----

Speaking of the Kabbalah, there are various Kabbalistic backronyms used as
a kind of mystical folk etymology.  For instance, the word PARDES
('paradise, garden') is expanded so that each consonant represents a level
of scriptural interpretation: Peshat (literal meaning), Remez (allegorical
meaning), Derasha (Talmudic interpretation), and Sod (mystical meaning).
This acronymic explanation first appeared in the 13th century in the works
of Moses ben Shem Tov (author of the Zohar).

Similarly, early Christians made the Greek word for 'fish', ICHTHUS, stand
for "Iesous CHristos THeou Uios Soter" (Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior).
Based on this backronym, the fish has been used as a symbol for Christ
since at least the 2nd century (and now can be seen affixed to the back of
SUVs across middle America.)

And going back even further is Plato's Cratylus, but I'll stop for now...


--Ben Zimmer