HowTo:Contrive a ridiculous acronym
“LOL!”
Contriving A Ridiculous Acronym, in other words CARA (or, for fans of the HowTo: namespace: HTCARA) is another way of saying a word is a backronym. HTCARA is an GNISBIUAA, which is to say, an GNISBIUSAA is Not an 'I'm Smart Because I Use Acronyms' Acronym.
One contrives a ridiculous acronym by being given a phrase, picking a word, standing on one's head so that the initials of the phrase spell out the word, which they never exactly do, then changing the words of the phrase (ideally without completely reversing its original meaning) so that they do spell out the word.
It is fair game to strategically omit small words from the HTCARA in order to make it work out. For example, laser originally stood for "Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation." By comparison, Han Solo would never have shot anyone with a LABTSEOR, and his concierge, Chewbacca, would have been hard put even to pronounce it.
The USA PATRIOT Act is America's most notorious HTCARA. It is more precisely rendered as the USA P.A.T.RIOT ACT(United States of America Peoples Against Texans Rioting Act), because its goal is to reduce the chance of stupid people voting idiot Texans into power. Unfortunately, they had already done so in 2000, and did so again in 2004 despite the passage of the ACT.
The reason to devise a HTCARA in the first place was to convince Congress it was voting for something involving patriotism, as opposed to something involving warrantless searches and wiretaps and illegal detention centers.
Comparable efforts to contrive ridiculous acronyms instead wind up as mere abbreviations. Legend has it that ancient Greek lawmakers were hanged if the Senate voted down their proposals, but no Congressman has ever been executed for failure at HTCARA.
Examples[edit]
LMAO: Lemmings Midgets And OompaLoompas [unite]
CUNT: "Central University of North Texas" Proposed name for a new sub-campus of UNT which would be located somewhere in-between Texarkana and El Paso.
ROTFLMAO: Roll On The Floor Like Mao (you know you want to)
RADAR: "Radio And Disco And Radio, an acronym used by a radio station in the mid 1970s promoting their all-disco format.
SPAM: "Stop Pooping Around Me", a phrase used in the middle ages before port-a-pottys were invented.
WHO: "World Health Organisation", originally called the "Organisation for Global Medical Treatment of People" until Roger Daltrey took over presidency in 1970.
WYSIWYG: "What You See Is What You Get", changed from the more accurate but less acronymable "What You See Is What You Might Get If You've Set Your Printer Up Correctly and Calibrated Your Monitor".
ARSE: Architectural Republic of Stunted Ewoks
FUBAR: Functional Under Barrage of Atomic Radar
FUGG: Fat Ugly Gay Guy
TANSTAAFT: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Tibet
