Backronym - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Backronym - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A backronym (or bacronym or also retronym) is a phrase that is constructed "after the fact" from a previously existing word or abbreviation, the abbreviation being an initialism or an acronym. The term is a false acronym, and sometimes used to refer to the initialism or acronym itself,^[1] but usually in those cases, it is a "replacement" backronym, the abbreviation already having an associated phrase. When the backronym phrase becomes more popular than the original, the word becomes an anacronym. (But other than that, backronyms and anacronyms have little to do with each other.)

The word backronym is a neologism, coined in 1983.^[2]

An example of a backronym from the word acronym is as follows.

Acronyms Condense Representations Of Neologisms You Memorize

In this example, because the word acronym itself is not an acronym, the phrase above is a pure backronym, not a replacement backronym. Since the phrase indirectly refers to the word itself, it is also apronymic. If this backronym helps you remember the word acronym or backronym, then it is also a mnemonic.

SPACE.com -- Canadians Excited to Send Robotic 'Superhero' into Space

SPACE.com -- Canadians Excited to Send Robotic 'Superhero' into Space:

"Canadians Excited to Send Robotic 'Superhero' into Space
By Dave Mosher
Staff Writer
posted: 10 March 2008
01:20 am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Mr. Dextre stands taller than a house, has two seven-jointed arms and can fly around the Earth in about 90 minutes. But he is not a superhero, nor is 'he' a person.

'Mr. Dextre,' as NASA's latest space shuttle Endeavour crew has coined it, is actually a Canadian space-age robot bound for the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning along with Japan's first orbital room. Led by commander Dominic Gorie, the seven-astronaut STS-123 crew will start assembly of the giant robot in space later this week."

Campbell has no mandate for carbon tax

Campbell has no mandate for carbon tax:

"here in B.C. we can expect to pay about $8.2 million to mail out the $100 cheques. If you are homeless, or for some other reason not on the CRA's list, you won't be getting any Gord Bucks.

So, by just how much is the carbon tax expected to reduce emissions? By about three million tonnes from where they would have been in 2020. Three million tonnes is 0.01 per cent of global and 5.5 per cent of B.C.'s current carbon emissions.

This three-million-tonne reduction is only 7.5 per cent of the 40 million tonnes the Campbell government is forcing British Columbians, through legislation, to reduce carbon emissions by.

The B.C. government has no mandate to implement a carbon tax and spend billions on climate change policies that will have a negligible effect. Let's keep in mind that B.C. accounts for less than one per cent of the world's and only nine per cent of Canada's carbon emissions.

This policy will hurt B.C.'s economy, make people poorer through higher energy costs, and ultimately reduce people's ability to make environmentally friendly decisions.

Maureen Bader is the B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.


The Vancouver Sun 2008"

reportonbusiness.com: It's time for provinces to follow B.C. on greenhouse gas emissions

reportonbusiness.com: It's time for provinces to follow B.C. on greenhouse gas emissions:

"old mindsets change slowly. Based on what we know about climate change today, artificially reducing electricity prices is the single worst policy you could advocate if you want to conserve energy. Governments spent 20 years hoping that voluntary measures would get the job done. And during that time, they made promises they could not keep - making the carbon tax taboo, for example. It is now clear to everyone that voluntarism doesn't work, while economic incentives do.

Premier Gordon Campbell has done the other provinces a favour. He made the carbon tax look like a winning proposition. Now it's their turn to get serious about greenhouse gas emissions. That means getting the price signals right and setting emission standards that give heavy industries clear targets to meet."

Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right? - New York Times

Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right? - New York Times

One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: “I’m not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps),” the posting said. “I’m talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.”

Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania who foresaw this debate in a 2004 paper, argues that the history of cosmetic surgery — scorned initially as vain and unnatural but now mainstream as a form of self-improvement — is a guide to predicting the trajectory of cosmetic neurology, as he calls it.