Pseudo-acronym

A pseudo-acronym, also sometimes referred to as an anti-acronym, is an acronym which officially doesn't stand for anything.

Some pseudo-acronyms stand for phrases which paradoxically deny their own existence. This is especially common among computer programs, especially UNIX programs. For instance, JINI is said to stand for Jini Is Not Initials. Pine, a common email reader, stands for Pine Is Not Elm (Elm is another mail reader). Wine, a port of windows DLLs to unix stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. LAME.exe, an mp3 encoder, ironically stands for Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder. These are also recursive acronyms - ones where part of the acronym expands to the original acronym. Since such an acronym can never be fully expanded, some refer to all such acronyms as pseudo- or anti-acronyms.

The term is also used for abbreviations and names that appear to be acronyms but cannot officially be expanded. The instant messaging system called ICQ, for instance, was chosen as a play on the words "I Seek You". Some argue that DVD became a pseudo-acronym when its original expansion - Digital Video Disk - became inadequate; officially, it is now an acronym for Digital Versatile Disk.

See also: initialism; apronym, backronym