A recursive acronym (or occasionally recursive initialism, and sometimes recursive backronym) is an acronym Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations that are formed using the initial components in a phrase or name. These components may be individual letters or parts of words (as in Benelux). There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms (see nomenclature), nor on written usage (see orthographic styling). While popular that refers to itself Recursion, in mathematics and computer science, is a method of defining functions in which the function being defined is applied within its own definition; specifically it is defining an infinite statement using finite components. The term is also used more generally to describe a process of repeating objects in a self-similar way. For instance, in the expression for which it stands. The term was first used in print in April 1986.^[1]

Computer-related examples

In computing Computing, also known as computer science, is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer technology, computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology. Computer science is the study and the science of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation, an early tradition in the hacker In home computing, a hacker is a person who heavily modifies the software or hardware of their own computer system. It includes building, rebuilding, modifying and creating software and electronic hardware (hardware hacking, modding) either to make it better, faster, give added features or to make it do something it was never intended to do. Hobby community (especially at MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research. MIT is one of two private land-grant universities[b] and is also a sea-grant and space-) 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 ("TINT Is Not TECO TECO is a text editor originally developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1960s, after which it was modified by 'just about everybody'. With all the dialects included, TECO may have been the most popular editor in use before the vi editor (later included with many Unix operating systems), and before the Emacs editor, to"), an editor for MagicSix MagicSix was an operating system for Interdata 7/32 minicomputers. It was used at MIT's Architecture Machine Group as the platform for the Aspen Movie Map. This inspired the two MIT Lisp Machine Lisp machines were general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software language. In a sense, they were the first commercial single-user workstations. Despite being modest in number (perhaps 7,000 units total as of 1988), Lisp machines commercially pioneered many now-commonplace technologies — including effective editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not Emacs Emacs is a class of feature-rich text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. Emacs has, perhaps, more editing commands than other editors, numbering over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). These were followed by Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman , often abbreviated "rms", is an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project, he initiated the free software's GNU GNU (pronounced /ˈɡnuː/ ) is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system" composed wholly of free software. Development of GNU was initiated by Richard Stallman in 1983 and was the original focus of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), but no (GNU's not Unix Unix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit). Many others also include negatives, such as denials that the thing defined is or resembles something else (which the thing defined does in fact resemble or is even derived from).

Notable examples

Noted examples include:

• AROS AROS Research Operating System is a free and open source implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs. Designed to be portable and flexible, ports are currently available for x86-based and PowerPC-based PCs in native and hosted flavors, with other architectures in development — AROS Research Operating System (note: originally Amiga Research Operating System)
• Allegro Allegro is a free and open source software library for video game development — Allegro Low LEvel Game ROutines (early versions for Atari ST were called "Atari Low LEvel Game ROutines")
• BING — BING is Not Google
• CAVE A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to three, four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube. The name is also a reference to the allegory of the Cave in Plato's Republic where a philosopher contemplates perception, reality and illusion — Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
• Cygnus — Cygnus, Your GNU Support
• EINE — EINE Is Not Emacs. ZWEI Was EINE Initially
• GiNaC — GiNaC is Not a CAS (Computer Algebra System)
• GNE — GNE's Not an Encyclopedia
• GNU GNU (pronounced /ˈɡnuː/ ) is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system" composed wholly of free software. Development of GNU was initiated by Richard Stallman in 1983 and was the original focus of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), but no — GNU's Not Unix
• INX — INX's Not X (a GNU/Linux distribution with a text interface)
• JACK — JACK Audio Connection Kit
• LAME LAME is a free software application used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format — LAME Ain't an MP3 MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer 3 or MPEG-1 or 2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music Encoder^[2]
• LiVES — LiVES is a Video Editing System
• MiNT — MiNT is Not TOS (later changed to "MiNT is Now TOS")
• MINT — MINT Is Not TRAC
• Mung — Mung Until No Good^[3]
• Nagios Nagios is a popular open source computer system and network monitoring software application. It watches hosts and services, alerting users when things go wrong and again when they get better — Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood (which is a reference to the previous name of Nagios, namely Netsaint)
• NiL — NiL Isn't Liero
• PHP PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. As a general-purpose — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (originally "Personal Home Page")
• P.I.P.S. — P.I.P.S. Is POSIX on Symbian
• PINE Pine is a freeware, text-based e-mail client developed at the University of Washington. The first version of this client was written in 1989. Source code was available for only the Unix version under a license written by the University of Washington. Pine is no longer under development, and has been replaced by the new Alpine client, which is — PINE Is Nearly Elm Elm, a text-based e-mail client commonly found on Unix systems, became popular as one of the first e-mail clients to use a text user interface, and as a utility with freely-available source code. The name elm originated from the phrase ELectronic Mail, originally; PINE now officially stands for "Pine Internet News and E-mail"^[4]
• PNG - PNG's Not GIF The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability
• RPM — RPM Package Manager (originally "Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide Package Manager")
• Scaled Scaled Composites , formerly the Rutan Aircraft Factory, is an aerospace company currently owned by Northrop Grumman that is located at the Mojave Spaceport, Mojave, California, United States and is headed by aircraft designer Burt Rutan. Prior to acquisition by Northrop Grumman, the company was founded to develop experimental aircraft, but now — Scaled Composites: Advanced Link to Efficient Development
• SPARQL SPARQL is an RDF query language; its name is a recursive acronym that stands for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language. It was standardized by the RDF Data Access Working Group (DAWG) of the World Wide Web Consortium, and is considered a key semantic web technology. On 15 January 2008, SPARQL became an official W3C Recommendation — SPARQL Protocol And RDF Query Language
• TiLP — TiLP is a Linking Program
• TIP — TIP isn't Pico (name for earliest versions of nano In computing, nano is a curses-based text editor for Unix and Unix-like systems. It is a clone of Pico, the editor of the Pine email client. Nano aims to emulate Pico as closely as possible and perhaps include extra functionality text editor)
• TTP — The TTP Project, the name given to a project led by Dilbert Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character. The strip has spawned several books, an animated television series, a computer game, and hundreds of Dilbert-themed merchandise items
• UIRA — UIRA Isn't a Recursive Acronym
• Wine Wine, a recursive acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator, is a free software application that aims to allow Unix-like computer operating systems to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows. Wine also provides a software library known as Winelib against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like systems — Wine Is Not an Emulator^[5]
• XBMC XBMC Media Center is a free and open source cross-platform media player and home entertainment system software with a 10-foot user interface designed for the living-room TV. Its graphical user interface allows the user to easily manage video, photos, podcasts, and music from a computer, optical disk, local network, and the internet using a remote — XBMC Media Center (originally Xbox Media Center)
• XINU — Xinu Is Not Unix
• XNA Microsoft XNA is a set of tools with a managed runtime environment provided by Microsoft that facilitates computer game development and management. XNA attempts to free game developers from writing "repetitive boilerplate code" and to bring different aspects of game production into a single system. The XNA toolset was announced March 24, — XNA's Not Acronymed
• YAML YAML is a human-readable data serialization format that takes concepts from languages such as XML, C, Python, Perl, as well as the format for electronic mail as specified by RFC 2822. YAML was first proposed by Clark Evans in 2001, who designed it together with Ingy döt Net and Oren Ben-Kiki. It is available for several programming and scripting — YAML Ain't Markup Language (initially "Yet Another Markup Language")
• Zinf Zinf is a free audio player released under the GNU General Public License. It runs on Unix-like operating systems and Windows — Zinf Is Not Freeamp

Mutually recursive or otherwise special

• The GNU Hurd GNU Hurd is a free software Unix-like replacement for the Unix kernel, released under the GNU General Public License. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation. It consists of a set of protocols and server processes (or daemons, in Unix terminology) that run on top of the GNU Mach microkernel; project is named with a mutually recursive acronym: "Hurd" stands for "Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons In Unix and other computer multitasking operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user; they are usually initiated as background processes. Typically daemons have names that end with the letter "d": for example, syslogd, the daemon that handles the system log,", and "Hird" stands for "Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth."

• The GNUBrain project is another mutually recursive acronym: "Brain" stands for "Brian relates any independent node" and "Brian" stands for "Brain implements a network".

• RPM, PHP and YAML were originally conventional initialisms which were later redefined recursively. They are examples of, or may be referred to as, backronymization, where the official meaning of an acronym or initialism 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 or ease of pronunciation. However YOPY, "Your own personal YOPY" is recursive on the last letter (hence the last letter had to be the same as the first).

Non-technical examples

Recursive acronyms are not limited to computing terminology. For example:

• TIARA — TIARA is a recursive acronym^[6]

Some organizations An organization is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon have been named or renamed in this way:

• BWIA — BWIA West Indies Airways (formerly British West Indian Airways)
• GES — GES Exposition Services (formerly Greyhound Exposition Services)
• LINK — Link Interchange NetworK, the UK ATM switching organisation.
• Saab Saab Automobile AB, better known as Saab, is a Swedish car manufacturer owned by General Motors. It was the exclusive automobile royal warrant holder as appointed by H.M., the King of Sweden. Since its inception, Saab had been known for its innovation; as it evolved and adopted ever more advancements to its turbocharging, safety, and green — Saab Automobile Saab Automobile AB, better known as Saab, is a Swedish car manufacturer owned by General Motors. It was the exclusive automobile royal warrant holder as appointed by H.M., the King of Sweden. Since its inception, Saab had been known for its innovation; as it evolved and adopted ever more advancements to its turbocharging, safety, and green Aktiebolaget, formerly part of Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, also known as Saab "Svenska Aeroplan AB " (Swedish for "Swedish Aeroplane Limited") (SAAB) was founded in 1937 in Trollhättan, with the merger of SAAB and Linköping based ASJA. The headquarters moved to Linköping. The style "Saab" replaced "SAAB" around 1950.
• VISA Visa Inc. is a global payments technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Visa connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories, enabling them to use digital currency instead of cash and checks. The company facilitates the processing of transactions on behalf of — Visa International Service Association
• ADAP — ADAP Discount Auto Parts
• Heil — Heil Environmental Industries Limited, maker of garbage trucks A waste collection vehicle , or colloquially called a 'Garbage Truck', 'Dustcart' or 'Dustbin lorry' is a truck specially designed to pick up smaller quantities of waste and haul it to landfills and other recycling or treatment facilities. They are a common sight in most urban areas. Waste collection vehicles are often incorrectly called dump
• KLuB — Klub Linux Bandung (Linux Club of Bandung Bandung Indonesian: Kota Bandung) is the capital of West Java province in Indonesia, and the country's third largest city, and 2nd largest metropolitan area, with 7.4 million in 2007. Located 768 m (2,520 ft) above sea level, Bandung has relatively year-around cooler temperature than most other Indonesian cities. The city lies on a river basin and city)
• RAS RAS syndrome stands for Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome and refers to the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism with the abbreviation itself, thus in effect repeating one or more words. Usage commentators consider such redundant acronyms poor style and an error to be avoided in writing, though they are - RAS Acronym Syndrome, the recursive version of RAS syndrome; in which the last letter is repeated as its own word.
• OIL — Oil India Limited
• Renault Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, buses, tractors, and trucks, and, in the past, autorail vehicles. Due to its alliance with Nissan, it is currently the world's fourth largest automaker. Headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, Renault owns the Romanian automaker Automobile Dacia and the Korean automaker Renault Samsung Motors — Régie Nationale des Usines Renault

Fictional examples

• In Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter, described by the author as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll", published 1979, Douglas Hofstadter Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, literary translation, artistic creation, and discovery in mathematics and physics. He is best known for his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, first published in 1979, for which he was awarded the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for uses the acronym GOD, 'GOD Over Djinn In Arabic, a genie is a supernatural creature which occupies a parallel world to that of mankind, and together with humans and angels makes up the three sentient creations of God (Allah). According to the Qur’ān, there are two creations that have free will: humans and jinn. Religious sources don't mention much about them; however, the Qur’an'. As a genie explains to Achilles, GOD God is the English name given to the singular omnipotent being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism stands for GOD Over Djinn, remarking that "GOD can never be fully expanded." In the German translation it is rendered as "ZEUS ewig über Schinn", meaning "Zeus eternally over Djinn".
• KOS-MOS — Kosmos Obey Strategical Multiple Operation Systems, from the video game series Xenosaga Xenosaga is a series of science fiction video games developed by Monolith Soft and published by Namco Bandai. Xenosaga's main story is in the form of a trilogy of PlayStation 2 video games. There have been three spin-off games and an anime adaptation. The Xenosaga series serves as a spiritual successor to the game Xenogears, which was released in 1.
• A recursive initialism appeared in a Dilbert Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character. The strip has spawned several books, an animated television series, a computer game, and hundreds of Dilbert-themed merchandise items comic strip, in which Dilbert states that the TTP project refers to The TTP Project (this is also an infinitely-redundant case of RAS syndrome).
• In the TV show Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer figured that her nemesis, Bob, was an acronym for "Beware of Bob".
• In the Archie Comics series Sonic the Hedgehog, the digital son of Eggman is named A.D.A.M., which has two meanings, one of which is "A.D.A.M. Determines Anonymous' Movements".
• In an episode of M*A*S*H, Radar O'Reilly refers to A.W.O.L. as "A.W.O.L. without official leave".
• In the DC Comics series Atari Force, ATARI originally stood for "Atari Technology And Research Institute," though this was changed to "Advanced Technology And Research Institute" in later issues.
• In The Simpsons episode That 90's Show, Homer defines "GRUNGE" as Guitar Rock Utilizing Nihilist Grunge Energy.
• A partial example from Look Around You exists. In the programme Maths is said to stand for Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin.

References

1. ^ "WordSpy - Recursive Acronym". http://www.wordspy.com/words/recursiveacronym.asp. Retrieved 2008-12-18.
2. ^ "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/LAME+Ain't+an+MP3+Encoder+(Mike+Cheng). Retrieved 2006-11-15.
3. ^ "mung". http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/mung.html. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
4. ^ "What Pine Really Stands For". http://www.island-resort.com/pine.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-06.
5. ^ "FAQ - The Official Wine Wiki". http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-8b4fbbe473bd0d51d936bcf298f5b7f0e8d25f2e. Retrieved 2009-01-16.
6. ^ .EXE magazine, November 1996

• This article is based in part on the Jargon File, which is in the public domain.

See also

• RAS syndrome (Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome)
• Acronyms
• Backronyms
• Anti-acronym

Categories: Acronyms | Self-reference | Types of words | Word play

See Also:

• Recursive Acronym: Encyclopedia
• Mutual Recursion: Encyclopedia

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Mach (Kernel): Images
• Alexandre Oliva: Images
• Error Code: Blogs
• Adobe Flash: Answers
• Eben Moglen: Blogs
• Computers: Software: Operating Systems: Microkernel: Flux-Fluke-Flask: Directory
• Hybrid Kernel
• GNOME: Encyclopedia
• DAP (Software): Images

Most Popular Pages:

• Error Code: Blogs
• Gfortran: Blogs
• Hybrid Kernel
• Minix
• Mach (Kernel): Images
• GNOME: Encyclopedia
• DAP (Software): Images
• Computers: Software: Operating Systems: Microkernel: Flux-Fluke-Flask: Directory
• GNU Lesser General Public License: Blogs
• Ext2: Encyclopedia

Related 'Recursive Acronym' Searches: