Talk:Recursive acronym
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TINT was the first recursive acronym I ever heard of when I invented the name. But that doesn't mean it is the earliest by any means. Surely others have thought of the idea before. TedAnderson 02:45 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Indeed, the ubiquitous VISA (credit card) appears to predate it, standing for VISA International Service Association since 1976. --Delirium 00:14, Aug 22, 2003 (UTC)
- The first similar thing like this I found was a cheap coloring/puzzle book. On one page, there were four pictures, and you were supposed to take the first letter of the name of each animal in the pictures to spell out the answer to "What do you call a baby sheep?" The first picture was, of course, a lamb. 153.42.168.136 20:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Nominations for list
- MAC - Macintosh Apple Computer - MACintosh apple computer
- Should YAML be on this list? Tjdw 02:11, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Question on Cygnus
Moved this question from the article: question: (is this Cygnus Solutions?) —Frecklefoot 16:19, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Were all these made to be recursive?
I'm a bit confused.. Linux is from Linus Torvalds forename, right? Or is Linux an official "more recent effort" as it says in the start of the list? Or is it just a "more recent effort" by a wikipedian who was bored and added it for fun? Same goes for e.g. "Pika", but *not* e.g. GNU. Shouldn't it be more clear what's made up and what's not? It seems bad to just mix them all together. It is indeed mentioned what's unofficial in some cases, but not always. Personally I think we should just get rid of everything unofficial, or I could just as well add a dozen of acronyms I've made up. :-P Jugalator 14:24, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Removed these two lines from the list, since they aren't recursive acronyms:
- Linux - Linux Is Not UniX
-- Khym Chanur 02:48, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
Along this train of thought, I also removed:
- PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file format unofficially also stands for "PNG is Not GIF"
--Avochelm 07:22, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
[edit] TTP and Dilbert
Both this page and the RAS syndrome page mention a Dilbert strip about TTP. Does anybody have a copy/link of that specific strip?
[edit] PHP
Didn't this originally stand for "People Hate Perl"? Md25 23:24, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"Personal Home Page," actually.
[edit] Is this a recursive?
BASS — Bass Anglers Sportsman Society? Given that the second Bass dosen't stand for the name rather it stands for the fish? => Not circular. I came accross this beacuse at the RESPECT Page we were discusing whether it is a recurcive acroymn. Some one suggested that it isn't for the same reason I have given for BASS. (i.e. the R stands for the concept of respect rather then refering to the name RESPECT)--JK the unwise 10:36, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] (Lack of) Circularity
I don't really see how any of these are circular or recursive. They all refer to their own name, but can only do so once. Once they've refered to their own name, than name can't be unfolded a second time or the sentence no longer makes sense. e.g.
- CAVE --> CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment --> CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment Automatic Virtual Environment
- Cygnus --> Cygnus, Your GNU Support --> Cygnus, Your GNU Support, Your GNU Support
Neither make any sense, nor do any of the others. Thus, while the acronyms refer to themselves as a word, they don't refer to themselves as an acronym, as that acronym cannot be unfolded a second time. Thus it's neither circular nor recursive, it's merely self-referential.
The only example of a recursive acronym I've seen is in Hofstadter's GEB, where one of the characters asks a question to GOD. GOD stands for "GOD, Over Djinn", and so we get
- GOD
- GOD, over Djinn
- GOD, over Djinn, over Djinn
- GOD, over Djinn, over ..., over Djinn
... and so on, leading to an infinite number of Djinns over which stands GOD, or, in other words, more infinite Djinns.
I was going to put this in the article, but then figured that if I wrote than none of the examples are really recursive acronyms, some would get narked, so I figured I'd raise the question here first. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 12:10, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
- The acronyms are circular because they are not complete in their "definition", but refer to themselves. Thus, in the case of GNU, the definition "GNU is Not Unix" is not a rigorous one, since the term GNU has not been expanded fully and, thus, the term has only been explained in terms of itself. It does not matter that the expanded (infinite) definition isn't grammatically accurate.--Swift 18:20, 14 August 2005 (UTC) [edited: 09:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)]
[edit] PINE
The mention of PINE being "Pine Is Not Elm" conflicts with the Pine (email client) entry, which cites the original author Laurence Lundblade insisting PINE was never an acronym. The PINE entry is someone ambiguous to this point, but it does specifically mention that PINE has no mention of Elm. Tlshd 20:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
- You are absolutely right. PINE as an acronym
isseems to be a myth. I have removed it from the list. If anyone wants it in, I'd suggest an "Unofficial acronym" section (though I'd personally dislike it as it might just open up a whole can of worms ...) --Swift 09:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)- My impression is otherwise, and I think the issue here is that the UofW in turning PINE into a registered trademark and using that as a tactic to defend their semi-free software (there was a long conflict with Stallman on the matter, don't get me started, but they certainly used bully tactics in the matter) they needed to clean up their story, which means their trademark should stand out as depending on something else. -- Egil 09:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
- OK. So you are saying that Mr. Lundblade changed the name to make it more original? Are there any sources for this?
- According to the FreeBSD Hypertext Man Pages, PINE was listed as "pine - a Program for Internet News and Email" in all versions that I checked (FreeBSD Ports 4.7, Slackware 3.1, Red Hat 4.2 and SuSE Linux 4.3) --Swift 22:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
- My impression is otherwise, and I think the issue here is that the UofW in turning PINE into a registered trademark and using that as a tactic to defend their semi-free software (there was a long conflict with Stallman on the matter, don't get me started, but they certainly used bully tactics in the matter) they needed to clean up their story, which means their trademark should stand out as depending on something else. -- Egil 09:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Moving technical examples
Does anyone else feel that the long list of technical examples would fit better in its own category (to go along with the Non-Technical Examples)? I feel that by doing so it would better the flow of the article and have it conform more to the generaly accepted style/standards. Ravidgemole 18:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
- I think the whole article could do with a big cleanup. So, sure, go ahead and be bold.--Swift 05:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] This topic should be renamed to "Recursive Abbreviations"
Several entries on the list are not acronyms, but rather abbreviations. For example, PLD, PNG, RPM, & TRM. Since acronyms are abbreviations (but not the inverse), the topic could be more appropriately named "Recursive Abbreviations". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.84.67.230 (talk • contribs) 15:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
- I agree that the topic should be named "Recursive abbreviations," but I must raise two small points. First, "PNG" is pronounced "ping," so doesn't that make it an acronym? Second, I think you might have meant to write "several entries on the list are not acronyms, but rather initialisms." To say that "several entries on the list are not acronyms, but rather abbreviations" is like saying that several people in a room are not women, but rather human beings. :-) --69.231.236.73 08:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
- I agree that some of the terms listed are, indeed, initialisms, but should we perhaps rather create a new page for initialisms? There is a merger debate going on at Acronym_and_initialism which we might want to wait to end before moving on this. --Swift 16:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Is PNG the opposite of a backronym?
PNG says that 'the acronym PNG was originally recursive, standing for "PNG's Not GIF" ', implying that it was later changed to portable network graphic (making it the opposite of a backronym). The controversy over the LZW patent which gif imploys makes it credible that they initially made it different just to avoid the patent, but then made it sound more official.
[edit] What does LISP have to do with anything?
Ok, so LISP is a recursive programming language, what does that have to do with recursive acronyms? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.103.142.226 (talk • contribs) 15:20, 15 June 2006.
- Good point. Does anyone feel it is a valuable contribution to the article? --Swift 20:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
-
- I guess not. I've removed the section. --Swift 23:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] SPARKS
A recent addition by 212.159.203.213 introduced SPARKS as "Smart Programmers Are Required To Know Sparks". Googling it only turned up one result which is in Turkish and seems to list it only as a secondary explanation (the primary being "Structured Programming A Reasonably Komplete Set"). Is this an actual acronym? Does this really warrant an entry? Could we have some references, please? --Swift 21:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
- The reference was removed by User:ViceroyInterus on 22:34, 17 June 2006. Thanks! --Swift 21:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] EINE/ZWEI
Eine isn't one in German, ein is. Although eine could be placed for a female, like an in for instance Eine frau aus Die Niederlande which literally means One woman from the Netherlands, the more normal translation would be A woman from the Netherlands so it doesn't refer to the number 1. So I propose, this is taken from the article. --Uhro87 17:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I concur and shall remove it now. --Islomaniac 973 15:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] NINJA
NINJA Is Not Just Air (It's dust-slaying Nano-shurikens of doom)
NINJA is an electronics duster sold by ThinkGeek, and it is a great example of a recursive acronym; a rather witty one, in fact. It was reverted with the comment "can't see this as anything except product placement." Does the fact that something is a brand name of a product prevent it from being included in this article? There's a whole section of corporation names. It seems unlikely (to me at least) that the person who originally added it to the list would be advertising it or affiliated with ThinkGeek. I was about to add it myself, and I'm certainly not advertising anything. 68.9.90.28 18:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
