A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself. The term was first
used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach:
An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD,
meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes
it as a recursive acronym. Other references followed, however the
concept was used as early as 1968 in John Brunner's science fiction novel
Stand On Zanzibar. In the story, the acronym EPT later morphed into
"Eptification for Particular Task". Computer-related examples
In computing, an early tradition in the hacker community was to choose acronyms
and abbreviations that referred humorously to themselves or to other
abbreviations. Perhaps the earliest example in this context, from about 1977
or 1978, is TINT, an editor for MagicSix written by Ted Anderson. This inspired
the two MIT Lisp Machine editors called EINE and ZWEI. These were followed by
Richard Stallman's GNU. Many others also include negatives, such as denials that
the thing defined is or resembles something else, to indicate that,
despite the similarities, it was distinct from the program on which it
was based. An earlier example appears in a 1976
textbook on data structures, in which the pseudo-language SPARKS is used to
define the algorithms discussed in the text. "SPARKS" is claimed to be a
non-acronymic name, but "several cute ideas have been suggested" as expansions
of the name. One of the suggestions is "Smart Programmers Are Required to Know
SPARKS". = Notable examples =
Ace — Ace Code Editor Allegro — Allegro Low LEvel Game
ROutines ANX — ANX is Not XNA
AROS — AROS Research Operating System BAMF — BAMF Application Matching
Framework BOSH — Bosh Outer SHell
CAVE — CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment
cURL — Curl URL Request Library EINE — EINE Is Not Emacs
FIJI — FIJI Is Just ImageJ FYBMEM — FYBMEM Your Basic Monitor
Editor Mechanism GiNaC — GiNaC is Not a CAS
GNU — GNU's Not Unix GPE – GPE Palmtop Environment
gRPC – grpc Remote Procedure Calls HIME — HIME Input Method Editor
INX — INX's Not X JACK — JACK Audio Connection Kit
KGS — KGS Go Server LAME — LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder
LISA – LISA: Invented Stupid Acronym LiVES — LiVES is a Video Editing System
MEGA — MEGA Encrypted Global Access MINT — MINT Is Not TRAC
MiNT — MiNT is Not TOS Mung — Mung Until No Good
Nano — Nano's ANOther editor Nagios — Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On
Sainthood NiL — NiL Isn't Liero
Ninja-ide – Ninja-IDE Is Not Just Another IDE
NITE — NITE Isn't TECO Either pacc – pacc: a compiler-compiler
PHP — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor PINE — PINE Is Nearly Elm, originally;
PINE now officially stands for "Pine Internet News and E-mail"
PIP — PIP Installs Packages P.I.P.S. — P.I.P.S. Is POSIX on Symbian
Qins — Qins is not Slow RPM — RPM Package Manager
SPARQL — SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language
TikZ – TikZ ist kein Zeichenprogramm TIARA — TIARA is a recursive acronym
TiLP — TiLP is a Linking Program TIP — TIP isn't Pico
TRESOR – TRESOR Runs Encryption Securely Outside RAM
UIRA — UIRA Isn't a Recursive Acronym WINE — WINE Is Not an Emulator
XBMC — XBMC Media Center XINU — Xinu Is Not Unix
XNA — XNA's Not Acronymed YAML — YAML Ain't Markup Language
Zinf — Zinf Is Not Freeamp ZWEI — ZWEI Was EINE Initially
Mutually recursive or otherwise special The GNU Hurd project is named with a
mutually recursive acronym: "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing
Daemons", and "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth."
RPM, PHP, XBMC and YAML were originally conventional acronyms which were later
redefined recursively. They are examples of, or may be referred to as,
backronymization, where the official meaning of an acronym is changed.
Jini claims the distinction of being the first recursive anti-acronym: 'Jini Is
Not Initials'. It might, however, be more properly termed an anti-backronym
because the term "Jini" never stood for anything in the first place. The more
recent "XNA", on the other hand, was deliberately designed that way.
Most recursive acronyms are recursive on the first letter, which is therefore an
arbitrary choice, often selected for reasons of humour, ease of
pronunciation, or consistency with an earlier acronym that used the same
letters for different words, such as PHP: PHP Hypertext Preprocessor, which
was originally "Personal home page". However YOPY, "Your own personal YOPY"
is recursive on the last letter. Organizations
Some organizations have been named or renamed in this way:
BWIA — BWIA West Indies Airways FALE — Fale Association of Locksport
Enthusiasts FARM — Farm Animal Rights Movement
GES — GES Exposition Services hEART — hEART the European Association
for Research in Transportation LINK — Link Interchange NetworK, the UK
ATM switching organization. Heil — Heil Environmental Industries
Limited, maker of garbage trucks Saab — Saab Aeroplan Aktiebolaget
In popular culture TTP - a technology project in the
Dilbert comic strip. The initials stand for "The TTP Project".
See also Acronyms
Backronyms RAS syndrome
Self-reference References
Notes Sources
This article is based in part on the Jargon File, which is in the public
domain. External links
The dictionary definition of recursive acronym at Wiktionary