As we all know, the only way to trick a hyper intelligent robot is to show them squiggly
letters. You’ve probably had to take one of these captcha tests sometime this week,
but did you know that captcha is actually an acronym? It stands for Completely Automated
Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Coined in 2003, the name references
Alan Turing, who invented the Turing test, originally called the imitation game, which
is used to test a machine’s ability to exhibit artificially intelligent behavior and mimic
a human. Now, all types of simple Turing tests are used to prevent spam bots from stealing
people’s information, mostly.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd, and welcome to a special bonus episode of The List Show from my living
room. Captcha is one of many acronyms that you might not know the origins of. Heck, if
you’re like me, you might not have realized captcha stood for anything at all. We’ve
got 25 acronyms and initialisms for you today, so let’s start ASAP. Get it? Because ASAP is ---
The name Geico wasn’t just chosen to create an opportunity in the underserved gecko spokesman
market. It’s an acronym for. Government Employees Insurance Company. When it first
began, it was targeted to US Government Employees and military personnel. But now they offer
insurance for all Americans. And some British amphibians. Australian? Where is he from?
The cooking spray isn’t named after anyone called Pam. It stands for Product of Arthur
Meyerhoff, who is the founder of PAM Products, INC.
Speaking of cooking, canola is not a plant that provides oil. Canola is actually an acronym.
It was originally a trademark name of the Rapeseed Association of Canada. The Can stands
for Canada, and OLA stands for oil, low acid. Canola.
That five digit zip code that you enter every time you’re ordering pizza online? That
stands for Zone Improvement Plan. It was created by the US Postal Service, and the term was
actually servicemarked, which is basically a legal trademark, until 1997.
The company started in 1947 as women’s fashion retailer Hennes, which is Swedish for Hers.
In 1968, they acquired, weirdly enough, a hunting apparel and fishing equipment retailer
named Mauritz Widforss, and the name became Hennes & Mauritz. In 1974, it was simplified
to just H&M. Kind of sad you can’t buy fishing lures at an H&M anymore but I suppose the
demand for ironic graphic tee-shirts was just too great to ignore.
Aflac was originally called American Family Life Insurance Company of Columbus. It was
later renamed to American Family Life Assurance Company, which was then shortened to Aflac.
Which to their credit, does sound better than Aflicoc.
Kmart is not, in fact, a place to shop for the letter K. The K is for Kresge, as in founder
Sebastian S. Kresge. If you’re looking to purchase some Ks, you’ll have to head to
either a K Depot or Ks R Us.
The TARDIS, the trusty vehicle of Doctor Who, resembles a British Police Phone Box. It’s
become an iconic symbol of the beloved sci-fi series. If you thought TARDIS was just a fancy
futuristic-sounding name, come on, you should know better at this point. It stands for Time
And Relative Dimension In Space. Fun fact, the word TARDIS is listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary.
DC comics has given us Wonder Woman, Bat Man, The Flash, Superman. Ya heard of him? It was
originally founded as National Allied Publications in 1934, and soon after became Detective Comics
Inc., named after one of their comic lines, which famously, in issue 27, would debut Bat
Man, my personal favorite superhero.
They later acquired All-American Publications, who in their line Action Comics had debuted
Superman in issue 1. At this point, they were known as National Periodical Publications,
but it’s said that they had already been branding themselves unofficially as “Superman-DC”
for years. In 1977, they would officially adopt the name DC Comics, which I guess makes
them Detective Comics Comics.
If you are a true 90s kid, you probably are sick of media companies shamelessly appealing
to your nostalgia. You might also remember POGs, the collectable disc shaped toys. According
to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name pog is an acronym for passion fruit, orange,
and guava, named after a drink in Maui that provided the lids for the first games.
LED lights have become way more popular over the last decade, offering relatively high
output in an energy efficient package. Did you know that LED stands for Light-emitting
diode? Making the phrase “LED Light” redundant so let's just stop saying it.
WD 40 was invented in a small lab in San Diego, California. The staff of the Rocket Chemical
Company were attempting to make a formula that would displace water, which is essentially
what the product is doing when it loosens rusted parts or frees up sticky mechanisms.
As the story goes, it took them 40 tries to perfect it. Water displacement perfected on
the 40th try. WD 40.
DVD is an interesting example of an acronym where the full title has actually changed
over the years. Originally, it stood for digital video disc. But, in 1995, dvd manufacturers
agreed that “in order to emphasize the flexibility of the format for multimedia applications,
the preferred abbreviation DVD would be understood to denote digital versatile disc.” Unfortunately,
the abbreviation doesn’t matter as much anymore because they have fallen in popularity
due to the convenient world of streaming. Unless, you’re me, in which case you still
have… hundreds.
If you’re into terrible candy, you might be a fan of Necco wafers. But did you know
that necco is an acronym for New England Confectionery Company.
...I mean, just buy some skittles.
Remember ALF? Me either. But just as ET stands for extra terrestrial, ALF stands for Alien
Life Form. What was going on in the ‘80s?
Famous nail polish brand OPI was originally founded as dental supply company Odontorium
Products Inc. The company’s CEO made the switch when he realized that their dental
acrylics were being used in the manicure industry. Thus, OPI was born.
LG used to stand for Lucky-Goldstar, the original name of the company. But now, LG says that
it stands for Life’s Good. OK. Which by the way, the phrase OK has a very long and
interesting origin… but we don’t have time for that right now.
When it was founded in 1963, CVS stood for Consumer Value Stores. They only sold health
and beauty products at the time. A few years later, they introduced pharmacies, and in
1996 their parent company, Melville Corporation, became CVS corporation.
Girls who were shopping for jeans in the early 2000s might remember L.E.I. The name stands
for Life Energy Intelligence. What that has to do with young adult denim is beyond me,
but there ya go.
While seals are not the most impressive or dangerous creatures in the animal world, Navy
Seals kind of are. SEAL stands for Sea, Air, And Land. The US Navy Seal teams have been
active since 1962.
The name yahoo, which if you’re like me immediately manifests the commercial yodeling
directly into my brain, is actually an acronym. It was initially called Jerry and David’s
Guide to the World Wide Web. Seems like a perfect name for one of the world’s biggest
companies, but as it grew in popularity, it was changed to Yahoo which is an acronym for
Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, according to Britannica. Although, another
story goes that the founders chose it simply because they liked the existing definition
of a yahoo: “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth.”
I personally never assumed care package stood for anything, it seemed to make perfect sense.
My mother sends me care packages all the time. Because she cares about me. But the first
CARE packages were put together in the aftermath of World War II with the aim of providing
food relief to war-torn Europe. They were organized by a group called Cooperative for
American Remittances to Europe, which was later changed to Cooperative for Assistance
and Relief Everywhere. Either way, it’s CARE. Who knew?
You can literally see behind me a bookshelf from IKEA, which I am using to display my
disgusting collection of board games. IKEA stands for, and I’m so sorry for this pronunciation,
Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. The first half is the founder’s name, followed by
the farm where he grew up, and finally his hometown. Ooph, the name of that one is almost
as hard to put together as my bed frame was, am I right guys?
Let’s dedicate #25 to some backronyms. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it refers
to a post-hoc meaning applied to the letters of a name that’s already been created. For
example, SOS is famously thought to mean Save our Ship or Save our Souls, but in reality,
it was chosen to be the international distress code simply for ease of use. TIME Magazine
is sometimes said to stand for The International Magazine of Events, but when it was founded,
the name was chosen to emphasize brevity. Plus, The International Magazine of Events
Magazine, would be redundant and stupid.
NERF is said to stand for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam, but HASBRO has never confirmed this,
and seems to be more of a modern interpretation. Hasbro, incidentally, is an abbreviation for
the company’s former name, Hassenfeld Brothers.
And to your FIFA-loving friend who claims that Adidas stands for All Day I Dream About
Soccer… let them down easy and tell them the truth: it was named after its founder,
Adi Dassler.
Thanks for watching Mental Floss. Don’t forget to subscribe so you can stay up to
date with all of the obscure trivia knowledge you’ll ever need with new episodes every
wednesday. I'll see you next time. And to all those '90s kids out there ... how are
you? Are you doing OK? Me either.