Apronym
An apronym is an acronym which means something appropriate to what it stands for. The word comes from a portmanteau of "apropos acronym".
An apronym is a lot like a backronym; indeed, a backronym could be described as an ex post facto apronym. While backronyms are made from a word or acronym after the fact (e.g. BASIC), an apronym's expansion is the original intended expansion. Some (such as the one given for "rhythm" below) are intended as mnemonics for difficult-to-spell words. Apronyms (backronyms included) can be made from any word, as a form of wordplay. Indeed, the word was coined by Tony McCoy O'Grady, an Irishman who has created over three thousand of them as wordplay; Mr. O'Grady's creations are visible at apronyms.com.
Some apronyms
- CREDIT - Court Referred Education, Drug Intervention and Treatment
- FORD - Fix Or Repair Daily
- FIAT - Fix It Again Tony
- MICROSOFT - Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
- APRONYM - A Petite Reminder (Openers Notation) Yields Mnemonic
- INFINITY - Increment Numbers Forever - It's Nuts, I Tell You!
- IRELAND - Independent Republic, English Lodgers Are Nearly Dislodged!
- TLA - Three Letter Acronym
- ETLA - Extended Three Letter Acronym
- RAID - Redundant Array of INEXPENSIVE Disks (said of an IDE RAID array)
- RHYTHM - Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving
