6 common Acronyms

CVS (Pharmacy) is now just called CVS, but when it first opened, the letters stood for Consumer Value Store.

The ZIP in ZIP Code stands for Zone Improvement Plan.

GEICO used to stand for "Government Employees Insurance Company."

The fashion retailer H&M is for Hennes & Mauritz.

The Smart Car was a collaboration between Swatch and Mercedes Benz and originally called the Swatch and Mercedes Art Car.

Today TCBY stands for The Country's Best Yogurt, but used to be called This Can't Be Yogurt.

Acronyms and Initialisms

Although many believe both are acronyms, there is a difference. An acronym is a pronounceable word that is formed using the first letters of the words in a phrase (sometimes, other parts of the words are also used). Some common acronyms include NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration), scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus), and laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get  RAM - Random Access Memory  NAFTA - North American Free Trade Agreement WASP - White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

An initialism is formed using the first letters of the words in a phrase -- it is pronounced like a series of letters, not like a word. Some common initialisms include UFO )Unidentified Flying Object) and LOL (Laugh Out Loud).  IMHO - In My Humble Opinion.

ROTC - Reserve Officers Training Corps is used both as an acronym and initialism.

What's in a Name

There are many countries that end in 'stan', such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. Pakistan has an interesting beginning. It is an acronym of the different regions, which originally broke down into: P=Punjab, A=Afghania, K=Kashmir, S=Sindh and the suffix -stan. Later, the 'i' was added to ease pronunciation. It might almost be called a place of places, as the name is made up of different regions.

The suffix -stan in Persian means "home of" and in Sanskrit means "place". So, Afghanistan is the place of the Afghanis and Pakistan is the place of the various Paks. In the old days, when tribes moved, the name was given to where they lived. It was their place. Many people still move from one place to another and still refer to their current house as 'my place'.

Incidently, abad, or abat is used as an ending in Asian cities names to refer to the person who founded the community. For instance, Abbottabad (where Osama was killed) was named after James Abbott, a British officer who governed the area during the British Colonial era.