Every day is a school day as they say - especially when it comes to mastering the English language. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary estimates that there are around 170,000 words currently in use, with an additional 47,000 deemed obsolete. Laurie Knox, who is an expert in linguistics regularly takes to TikTok to offer an insight into the world of words, educating his followers on all things to do with the English language.
In his latest clip, he revealed seven common words he believes you may have never realised are acronyms. An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word - such as ASAP (as soon as possible) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). You may have seen this word when proving your identity when entering a web site in a process designed to thwart bots. "It stands for 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart," Laurie explained.
Continuing the computing theme, he moved on to 'E-fit' - typically an electronic facial image used by police in the hope of identifying a criminal. Laurie revealed it stands for 'Electronic Facial Identification Technique'. Another police instrument is that of the taser. "Did you know this is an acronym too?" Laurie asked. "It stands for 'Tom A Swift Electronic Rifle'. The name comes from Victor Appleton's Tom Swift series of books from the early 1900s, one of which was titles, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.
This activity is an extreme sport that involves jumping from fixed objects - often a building or a bridge. The unusual pastime's full name is 'Buildings Antennas Spans Earth' Jumping, Laurie says. Fifth on Laurie's list is a much more common activity - scuba diving, which is an underwater diving practice using breathing equipment . "This stands for 'Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus'," Laurie said.
An every day word - but one you're likely to have not realised is an acronym is laser - a device that emits a beam of coherent monochromatic light. "It stands for 'Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation'," Laurie added. Laurie closed by admitting he'd only just been informed that gulag is in fact a Russian acronym used in English - referring to a system of labour camps maintained in the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1955. "It basically means 'Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps' [in translation]," Laurie said. In it's native language, however, it stands for 'Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh LAGerei'.
