Monday, November 7, 2011

A word for an acronym that doesn't stand for anything



Some brands or product names take the form of an acronym, but the letters don't actually stand for anything. An example would be Windows XP--the "XP" was chosen for its sound and connotations rather than any particular words starting with X or P. Is there a term for this sort of formation? My first thought was "initialism", but it seems too broad since it includes terms that are meant to stand for things.


Answer



I agree with aaa that this could just be recognized as a trademark, but this could also be a pseudo-acronym.



A pseudo-acronym is a type of initialism that once had a deeper meaning (or was once an acronym) but lost this meaning and is now just a string of letters. In this case, XP was an abbreviation for experience, but over time, this has faded away and the letters are just letters.


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