Acronymic Mockery, Folk Acronyms

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 2:01 PM, Mark Peters <markpeters33 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I'm writing a column this week on what I'm calling Acronymic Mockery, a form of folk acronym,
> specifically, how people are saying that BP really stands for Bungled Plugjob, Brazen Polluters,
> Beyond Punishment, etc. I'm trying to get as many other examples as I can too. I've found
> plenty involving the CIA, FBI, NRA, and NFL, such as the well-known No Fun League and
> People Eating Tasting Animals (PETA). Any other examples come to mind? This isn't really
> about folk acronyms proposed as etymology, but what the hell, if there's a not-so-well-known
> example, I'd welcome that too.
>
> If anyone knows of an article about this, that tip would be particularly appreciated. I found a
> couple old ones in the Journal of American Folklore, but there must be more. Thanks!

Are you referring to Nicholas Howe's 1989 article "Rewriting
initialisms: folk derivations and linguistic riddles," _J Am Folk_
102(404):171-182? That has quite a lot of examples. I reproduced some
of the automotive ones here:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0503D&L=ADS-L&P=R3815


--Ben Zimmer

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