Apronym

In linguistics, an apronym is a word, which as an acronym or backronym, has a meaning related to the meaning of the words constituting the acronym or backronym. For example, the acronym for Seasonal affective disorder, SAD, reflects the actual meaning of the term as denoting the emotion of suffering or sadness. Homonyms of a word may also be used to form apronyms.

Purposes

Apronyms are created for several purposes.

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• Serious purposes such as the name of an organisation or programme. In such cases usually the apronym and its expanded term are chosen together for their aptness to the thing being named. See the examples of SAD and SADD in the introduction.
• As mnemonics for difficult-to-spell words. For example, a recursive acronym for "rhythm" is Rhythm Has Your Two Hips Moving.
• In marketing and public relations, as a method of influencing public thought. Examples abound in the names of medical and industry lobby studies, such as "CHEERS", the chemical industry's Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study. Apronyms have also been appearing in government legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) and the FAIR Act (Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act)
• As amusement where the objective is the clever and inventive use of words rather than practical or sensible expanded terms. Irishman Tony McCoy O'Grady and others have created thousands of them as word play on the apronyms.com website. For example, infinity - Increment Numbers Forever - It's Nuts, I Tell You!
• Related to the previous is the amusement of creating jocular, and often also derogatory, terms from names of brands, companies, organisations etc. For example, Ford ? Fix Or Repair Daily, or NASA - Need Another Seven Astronauts (after the 1986 crash of the Challenger_Space_Shuttle).

Apronyms which are not back-formed are usually unintended apronyms.

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