10 Words That Started Life as Acronyms
And are still in popular use today
An acronym takes the initial letters of a phrase and turns them into a word in their own right.
Many of us use acronyms, especially at work. Some of these acronyms are widely understood and some are specialised and only have meaning for those within a certain field.
For example in my field of First Aid, we teach DR(S)ABC to remember the primary survey protocol, SAMPLE for secondary survey and RICE to recall how to treat a sprain — Rest, Ice, Comfortable support and Elevate in case you were wondering.
Here’s a look at 10 of the more commonly used ones and some of the history behind them.
1. CAPTCHA — Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
Phew! No wonder they wanted an acronym for this one.
We’re all familiar with CAPTCHA’s, those annoying tests needed to access or sign up to certain sites to prove you’re not a robot. These vary from words or number sequences to, more recently, image grids where you click on the squares that contain features such as cars or road signs.
As the internet developed, problems appeared when unscrupulous hackers spammed…
