Fun with Acronyms/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Fun with Acronyms in Literature include:

Harry Potter

  • In the Harry Potter novels, Hermione starts up the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. She insists the acronym be pronounced in letters rather than as a word, understandably enough.
    • Lampshaded when Ron and Harry object to S.P.E.W and Hermione retorts that she was originally going to have "Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status" but it wouldn't fit on a badge.
    • And let's not forget Ron asking if Hermione had changed the name to "the House Elf Liberation Front", or, very conveniently the House E.L.F for short.
    • The name in Spanish was translated as "Plataforma Élfica de Defensa de los Derechos Obreros", or PEDDO, which in Spanish translates roughly as "FARTT". It would also be pronounced in English as "pedo", which carries with it its own implications. (NAMBLA, anyone?)
    • In German, it becomes the rather more strained Bund für Elfenrechte, or B.Elfe.r. "Belfer" is a (mostly obscure) German word meaning approximately "loudmouth"...
      • The fact that the first two words look like 'Burned Fur' is a coincidence.
    • Not to mention the Stichting Huiself voor Inburgering en Tolerantie, from the dutch translation. Quite obvious, isn't it?
    • Hungarian readers get to know the "Manók Alkotmányos Jogaiért" Országos Mozgalom, or "National Movement For the Constitutional Rights of Elves" - by the way, majom means monkey.
    • The French translation is Société d'Aide à la Libération des Elfes -- "sale" means "dirty".
    • The Swedish version has Föreningen för Ideelt Stöd till Alferna (The organization for non-profit support to the elves). Fisa = (to) fart.
    • The Finnish version has Samat Yhteiset Lait Kotitontuillekin - Yhdistys (The same common laws for the house-elves too - the organization). Sylki = Saliva.
    • The Danish translation, on the other hand, is really lame - Foreningen for Alfers Rettigheder(Society for Elf Rights), which spells FAR, meaning "dad". Yes, seriously.
  • The Harry Potter series also involves exams known as Ordinary Wizarding Levels and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (OWL s and NEWT s)
    • Translated over very well to Norwegian, where it became Undre Galdrelaugseksamen and Øvre Galdrelaugseksamen. Lower Galderguildexam and Upper ditto. Also mean Ugle (owl) and Øgle (newt).
    • More loosely translated to Spanish, where they are Títulos Indispensables de Magia Ordinaria ("Ordinary Titles on Ordinary Magic") and EXámenes Terribles de Alta Sabiduría e Invocaciones Secretas ("Terrible Examinations on High Wisdom and Secret Invocations"). "Timo" means "hoax" and "Éxtasis" is somewhat obvious.
    • The Dutch version has the SLIJMBAL: Schiftelijke Lofuiting wegens I Jver, Magische Bekwaamheid en Algeheel Leervermogen and the PUIST: Proeve van Uitzonderlijke Inteligentie en Superieure Toverkunst (Slijmbal means slimeball, and a Puist is a big pimple.)
    • The Swedish version has Grund-Examen i Trollkonst (Base-Exam in Wizardry) and Fruktansvärt Utmattande Trollkarst-Test (Very Exhausting Wizard's Test). Get = Goat. Futt = ???.
      • Actually futt comes from the word futtig meaning paltry. Futt can sometimes be used as a prefix, like when you say you have a futtlön (low salary).
    • The Finnish version has Se Uskomattoman Paha Erittäin Raskas (The Unbeleviably Bad, Especially Heavy (tough) one) and Velhomaailman Ihmeisiin Perehdyttävä (Familiarization to the wonders of the wizard world).
  • One possibly-unintentional Harry Potter example is from the epilogue, in which we meet Harry's son, Albus Severus Potter. If the name weren't unfortunate enough, look at what the initials spell. No wonder he's worried about being sorted into Slytherin.

Illuminatus! Trilogy

  • The Illuminatus! Trilogy features a supercomputer known as the First Universal Cybernetic-Kinetic Ultramicro-Programmer.
  • In an odd combination of this trope with Sdrawkcab Name, it also has an organization called the Knights of Christianity United in Faith.
  • And don't forget the Erisian Liberation Front.
  • Or White Heroes Opposing Red Extremism.
  • Agent 000005 Fission Chips sees signs of Blowhard's Unreformed Gangsters, Goons, and Espionage Renegades everywhere. While he is wrong about the name and purpose of the group, he is actually closer to the truth about Illuminati than probably anyone except Hagbard Celine.

Other works

  • In Larry Niven's "Known Space", Amalgamation of Regional Militia is ARM, producing the bionic-limbed Gilbert G. Hamilton, known as "Gil the ARM".
  • In Zadie Smith's comedic novel White Teeth, a group of young radical second-generation British Muslims is named K.E.V.I.N.: Keepers of the Eternal and Vigilant Islamic Nation. "We are aware we have an acronym problem."
  • Christopher Stasheff's "Warlock" novels include many organizations with unlikely acronyms for names: The Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra (PEST), the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal (DDT) which wiped out PEST, the Society for the Conversion of Extra-terrestial Nascent Totalitarianisms (SCENT), intended to sniff out possible problems, and no less than three groups of time-travelers: the Society for the Prevention of Integration of Telepathic Entities (SPITE), the Vigilant Extenders of Totalitarian Organizations (VETO), and the Guarantors of the Rights of Individuals, Patentholders Especially (GRIPE) (founded by the man who invented the time machine and was annoyed at the other two groups, who weren't paying him any royalties).
  • The very nasty villains in C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength are called the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (NICE). This did not go unremarked when the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence chose to abbreviate itself to NICE instead of NIHCE.
  • An organization in Dale Brown's Dreamland (and related) books is called HAWC. It stands for "High Technology Aerospace Weapon Center", but the acronym sticks because it just sounds cool. It may also have received a Shout-Out from fellow techno-thriller writer Tom Clancy with the H.A.W.X. unit from the eponymous flight-action title.
  • The dreadful Betty Bowers of America's Best Christian is the leader of Bringing Integrity To Christian Homemakers, Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals (changed when it became clear that there was money in the 'gay eye for the straight guy' thing to Christians Are Saving Homosexuals), and an abstinence club for girls called Saving Love Until The Sacraments. (Which is amusing in itself, as the Baptist church does not consider marriage a sacrament.)
  • In Spider Robinson's Stardance, the main characters have to deal with the transport division of Space Industries Coporation. When they see the division's name and motto on its front door, one breaks down into laughter: "S.I.C. Transit -- Gloria Mundi". ("Thus passes the glory of the world", a well-known phrase in Latin.)
  • Bliss Stage:

Commander Jim Preston: "Keenan, suit up for a hot launch of the A.N.I.Ma. - Yukiko will Anchor."
Keenan Caine: Roger that. Incidentally, what does A.N.I.Ma. mean?
Derek Smith: Alien Numina Inversion Machine.
Keenan Caine: ...Someone reads too much Carl Jung.

  • The Myth series already had that name before the characters founded M.Y.T.H. Inc., which supposedly stands for Magical Young Troubleshooting Heroes. The protagonist comments, "This is what happens when you leave things to a committee," and no one ever mentions what the initials stand for again.
    • Out-of-character, of course, it's a backronym that Asprin concocted specifically so he could use it in title puns.
  • In the CHERUB series, the titular acronym apparently doesn't stand for anything. However, at the end of the second prequel book, Charles Henderson, the founder of cherub, is given jurisdiction over Espionage Research Unit B.
  • The Dragonriders of Pern novels had a supercomputer going by the name Artificial Intelligence Voice Address System. The characters that interacted with it tended to treat the acronym as a name, possibly because the device seemed to be virtually sentient at times. Also, the name Pern itself comes from an acronym assigned by the planetary survey team that discovered it: Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible.
  • Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 uses these as Arc Words for its (possibly imaginary ) Ancient Conspiracy, Trystero. Their top-secret mail service is called WASTE, which stands for "We Await Silent Trystero's Empire". And while we're on the subject, Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn.
    • And then in Gravity's Rainbow we get Psychological Intelligence Schemes for Expediting Surrender and the Abreaction Research Facility.
  • In Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 short story All You Zombies, the same "elite military service corps" is referred to at various points in history as the Women's Emergency National Corps, Hospitality & Entertainment Section, the "Space Angels" or Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial Legions, and the Women's Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen.
    • No doubt inspired by the Real Life Women Airforce Service Pilots and their naval counterparts, Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.
  • In Artemis Fowl, most of the fairy characters work for the Lower Elements Police, ofen in the Reconnaissance unit, making them LEPRecons
    • Lampshaded when this is revealed as the true origin of the word 'leprechaun'.
    • And somewhat confusing, considering all instances of the nominal modifier 'LEP' is prefixed with an: AN LEP shuttle, AN LEP officer. So it's supposed to be pronounced 'Ell Eee Pee' apparently.
  • In A Series of Unfortunate Events, Jerome Squalor compiles the evidence against Count Olaf into a book entitled Odious Lusting After Finance. Not to mention the many, many times phrases are shoehorned into the Arc Acronym V.F.D.
    • This is strongly implied to stand for Volunteer Fire Department.
  • Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is full of recurring acronyms. There's the G, E, and B (rearranged sometimes) of the title, RICERCAR (actually an example of Bach having Fun with Acronyms), spelling the initial letters of many utterances in a dialogue at the end of the book, which also abbreviates the name of Charles Babbage as Ba.Ch.. In another dialogue, we encounter GOD (standing for GOD Over Djinn), and in one dialogue, "Contracrostipunctus", the initial characters of each line spell Hofstadter's Contracrostipunctus Acrostically Backwards Spells 'J.S.Bach'. Guess what acronym you get if you reverse word order in the acronym and then form an acronym out of that.
  • Lampshaded in The Brentford Chainstore Massacre, where the Villain's {Mook}s are recruited from the "Black Umbrella Militant Fascist Underground Communist Killers and that's an acronym you don't want to think about for too long."
  • In Pamela F. Service's Weirdos of the Universe Unite!, the protagonists have a two-member club called WEIRD. They eventually decide that it stands for Weird Entities In Rightful Domination.
  • In one of the Adrian Mole books, Adrian notes the full name of Pandora Louise Elizabeth Braithwaite and reflects on whether she ever used her initials.
  • Discworld:
    • In Eric, the titular young necromancer uses a grimoire of potent evil in an attempt to summon a demon to do his bidding. The book is Mallificarum Sumpta Diabolicite Occularis Singularum. Which translates as "evil-making driver of the little one-eyed devil".
    • In The Fifth Elephant, Leonard of Quirm creates a device for breaking codes: "the Engine for the Neutralizing of Information by the Generation of Miasmic Alphabets" - Enigma.
  • In More Information Than You Require, John Hodgman advises this as a method of memorizing names. For example, if you want to memorize the name "John", then you can use: " Juries Often Hate Negroes John Or Hodgman Name".
  • In the novel of The Fourth Protocol the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee is complaining that he doesn't have a catchy acronym, whereupon the CIA liaison officer suggests Supreme Head of Intelligence Targeting. Preferring not to be known as the SHIT of Whitehall, he quickly drops the matter.
  • In the spy novel The Sinkiang Executive by Adam Hall, Quiller encounters a possible Honey Trap pumping him for information (among other things) so he tells her about the problem of his current engineering project - how tightly should the Directional U-beam Kinetic Sensor (DUKS) fit with the Annular Reciprocating Speculum (ARS)? His conclusion is that a DUKS ARS must be watertight, or else it wouldn't float.
  • Eugene Byrne's Thigmoo has the Socialist Ladies' Undercover Team, who specialise in seducing men for their cause. When the acronym was pointed out, Socialist Ladies' Action Group was suggested instead.
    • While ThigMOO itself turns out to be an odd acronym, standing for THIs Great MOvement Of Ours.
  • A Time Police series of the '60s-'70s was called Agent of T.E.R.R.A. despite the fact that Earth was just one world in their civilization and many, perhaps most of the agents, including the main character, were not Earth people. The acronym stood for something along the lines of "Temporal Entropy Research and Reconstruction Agency." The main action in all four books did take place on Earth, though.
  • Mad Magazine had a parody of NYPD Blue which featured a member of the Christian Right Against Pornography demanding that the show be taken off the air. The producer lampshades the acronym.
    • Another issue has a fake church ad from the Inspirational Divine Institute Of Total Salvation
  • In Timothy Zahn's Cobra trilogy, the Cobras at first look like an elite unit, but turn out to be Super Soldiers with unbreakable bones, servo-powered joints, concealed lasers, and reflexes hooked up to computers embedded just under their brains, among other changes. Only later are we told that "Cobra" refers only secondarily to the Earth snake. It's an acronym for Computerized Body Reflex Armament.
  • In David Weber's Safehold series there is
    • The PICA (Personality-Integrated Cybernetic Avatar), a robotic body that can be used to experience remotely things that danger or disability would render impossible to do otherwise. The later versions can also have a person's personality downloaded into them and act on their own, which is what happens with protagonist Nimue Alban's PICA.
    • Nimue also uses Self-Navigating Autonomous Reconnaissance and Communication platforms extensively to keep track of what happens at other places.
  • David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest has the United States merging with Mexico and Canada, in every New World Order conspiracy nut's nightmare, to form the Organization of North American Nations.
  • Averted in Isaac Asimov's novel version of Fantastic Voyage, in which the acronym for Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces is unpronounceable except as see-em-dee-eff. Which does not stop the hero from speculating that it may stand for "Consolidated Martian Dimwits and Fools. I've got a better one than that but it's unprintable."
  • The Heroes-R-Us series SOBS, for the mercenary group Soldiers Of Barrabas (their leader) among other things.
  • The protagonist of the Michael Z Williamson Freehold novel The Weapon has a selection of made-up organisations to use as 'bad guys' in military exercises and general practical jokes. The worst is the Committee for the Utilisation of Natural Terrain in Spiritualism, made even more awesome by the phone conversation during an exercise, in which he claimed the female PR officer, Major Hardy, that he was holding hostage knew nothing about CUNTS, and that he wouldn't release her in case she said something nasty about [them].
  • The science fiction author and journalist John Brosnan wrote some of his work under a variety of aliases. For the absolute trashiest, he was either Harry Adam Knight, or Simon Ian Childer, thereby indicating his opinion of the books (SIC) and himself for writing them (HAK).
  • The spacecraft in the second book of the Into the Looking Glass series was tagged with Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade. Humans argued strongly against that prefix, but were overridden by the aliens providing a lot of the technical support required to get the original Blade built.
  • An Avengers Expanded Universe novel, Too Many Targets, plays with the show's love for funny acronyms by introducing VOICE; Venerable Order of Inter-Communicative Endeavors, an organization devoted to helping hearing-impaired and mute people communicate.
  • There's an Irish series of books and newspaper strips based around Ross O Carroll Kelly, the acronym from which is the nickname of Blackrock, a well-known and very posh South Dublin private school (Ross attends the fictional-but-remarkably-similar Castlerock, and most of the first books are designed around mocking the South Dublin upper classes and the obsession with school-level rugby). It gets better with his mother, Fionnuala O Carroll Kelly ('Fock' being the South Dublin phonetic pronunciation of a word less printable in family newspapers) and father Charles O Carroll Kelly (which...yeah.)
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Why do you think the Wizard was made the wizard of a land name Oz? His full name is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. He didn't like the other part, though.
  • The H.I.V.E. Series has the titular school, the Higher Institute of Villainous Education, as well as the Global League Of Villainous Enterprises.
  • In the book Magic for Marigold by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the Lesley clan gathers to come up with a name for the new child in the family. At one point, the name Harriet Ellen Louise Lesley, after three women in the clan that were missionaries, is suggested. It is immediately dropped after the great-grandmother asks if they've considered what the initials spell.
  • In the Gone (novel) series, everywhere under the impenetrable wall is called the FAYZ: Fallout Alley Youth Zone.
  • The Dune series had a company called CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles). Ellis Weiner's National Lampoon spoof novel Doon changed this to N.O.A.M.C.H.O.M.S.K.Y. In the German translation, it is called MAFEA (Merkantile Allianz für Fortschritt und Entwicklung im All, literally "Mercantile Alliance for Progress and Development in Space").
  • In a possible nod to Spectra, the terrorist organisation 'Scorpia' in the Alex Rider series is named for the activities it specialises in: Sabotage, CorruPtion, Intelligence and Assassination.
  • In Trevanian's Shibumi, one of the Mother Company's more senior officers is the Deputy International Liaison Duty Officer, "typically referred to by his acronym" - though the book itself goes out of its way to never actually refer to him as such.
  • The Unavoidable Family Outing books has a character named BRAD, who insists on always spelling it with capital letters. The two younger siblings spend much of the book coming up with immature ideas as to what it stands for.
  • The Travelers Through Time series of children's novels, wherein the heroes' time machine is called the Time And Space Connector.
  • The Retief series by Keith Laumer features multiple CDT organizations, often with very silly names. Retief himself is generally the only one to show awareness of the oddness of some name choices.
  • The animal testing facility in The Plague Dogs is called "Animal Research: Science and Experimental."
  • The Gaunt's Ghosts novel The Armour of Contempt has Retraining, Indoctrination and Punishment.
  • In the Wild Cards universe, the House Un-American Activities Committee was supplemented by the Senate Committee on Ace REsources.
  • Sherman Alexie lampshades this in Flight, with IRON, short for Indigenous Rights Now. (Someone buy those guys a vowel.) The bad guys are called HAMMER, which doesn't stand for anything.
  • The Honor Harrington novel Echoes of Honor mentions that though Commanding Officer, Light Attack Craft sounds too much like "colic", the other suggestion of Commanding Officer, Wing was slapped down.
  • The Demon Headmaster - The main characters' group call themselves the Society for the Protection of our Lives Against Them ("them" being the Headmaster and his hypnotized minions.)
  • In the novelization of the Iron Man film, JARVIS (an AI in the movieverse) is revealed to stand for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. Backronym, of course, since in the original comics, Edwin Jarvis was the Avengers' butler.
  • The F.R.E.A.K.S. Squads Investigation novels has the Federal Response to Extra-sensory And Kindred Supernaturals. Which is a sub-division of the FBI.
  • Laser weapons in Iain M Banks' Culture series are called Coherent Radiation Emission Weapons Systems (CREWS).
  • Several writers of Magitek fiction have used references to elite police units known as (what else?) Special Wizardry And Tactics teams.
  • In Stardoc novels by S.L. Viehl, Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil (later Torin) has been told from birth that her first name is Navajo in origin, as her father (a famous genetic scientist) is partly descended from that people. It's not until she's a young woman that she finds out that the real meaning is Comprehensive Human Enhancement Research ID: J Organism. She's a genetically-engineered clone of her "father".
  • Prof. A.Donda by Stanislaw Lem - a typo made Donda professor of Svarnetics, which is Stochastic Verification of Automatized Rules of Negative Enchantment.
  • This Immortal by Roger Zelazny briefly mentions the Office of Awards, Furbishments, Insignia, Symbols, and Heraldry, which comes up with decorations to be awarded to bureaucrats. The narrator remarks that the man who named OAFISH realized his office's job was to "fake dignity."
  • People who write to Dan Savage's sex advice column, "Savage Love", often pick a publication name which can be shortened into an acronym describing their problem. HELP, LOST, SCREWED, etc. He complained about it once, but the practice continues.
  • An article about an improbable baseball pitcher in Sports Illustrated had the first letters of the words in the first sentence spell out APRIL FOOLS
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