Lecture 28: Specialty Words for Language
z The acronyms USA, FBI, and CIA are pronounced as a series of
initial letters rather than as a whole word; for this reason, some
linguists classify them as initialisms. But for our purposes, we’ll
consider the two categories together.z We often think of acronyms as a recent phenomenon because the
term acronym came into English in the 1940s, and there has been
a dramatic increase in acronym usage in the 20th century. However,
acronyms are not a modern invention. For example, the legions
of ancient Rome carried standards on which the acronym SPQR
was emblazoned. This acronym stood for the Latin phrase Senatus
Populusque Romanus, meaning “the Senate and the People of
Rome.” It was a way of referring to the government of the Roman
Republic and, later, the Roman Empire.7KHPLOLWDU\LVNQRZQIRULWVSHQFKDQWIRUDFURQ\PVLQFOXGLQJWKHFRORUIXOSNAFU
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