Acronymic Mockery, Folk Acronyms

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:30 PM -0400 6/13/10, Mark Mandel wrote:
>Department of Lost Causes
>
><irony>And you're really going to call them acronyms, not
>initialisms?</irony>
>
>(Sigh.) Even I have trouble pronouncing /bp/ as an acronym, rather than the
>initialism /'bi:'pi:/ = "bee-pee".
>
>On second thought, /bp/ does sound suggestive of a bubble of oil squeezing
>its way out into the ocean.
>
>Mark Mandel

Well, one suggestion for their public relations staff might be to
trade in their now besmirched "BP" initialism for something more
customer-friendly, such as the clipronym "BritPet" (with a bulldog as
their mascot).  I think that would be almost as effective as my
earlier thought that they should replace Tony Heyward as apologist in
chief with Hugh Grant, who has some experience at this.

LH

>
>On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 2:01 PM, Mark Peters <markpeters33 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>  Sigh. Maybe this will defunk my message:
>>
>>
>>
>>  Hey folks,
>>
>>  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!
>>
>>  Mark
>>
>
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