TOEFL iBT Integrated Writing Task
Listening passage
In 1983, one of the new words to enter the English language was
‘backronym’. A backronym spelt B-A-C-K-R-O-N-Y-M is a special type of
acronym that begins as an ordinary word, and only later is seen by
people as an acronym.
A backronym is created when one constructs a phrase that has, as its
acronym, an existing short word. Backronyms can be serious official
expressions or they can be created for humorous reasons. An example of
a serious backronym is PERL, spelt P-E-R-L. PERL is a computer
programming language and Larry Wall, its inventor wanted to call it
PEARL, P-E-A-R-L, like the jewel we find in oysters. Unfortunately,
that word was already in use as a computer term, so Mr. Wall changed
the name of his programming language to PERL by removing the letter A.
The word PERL was actually just a name, but later people started to say
that PERL meant Practical Extraction and Report Language and now many
believe that this is why this programming language is known as PERL.
PERL has become a backronym. Another example is the international
distress signal, SOS. It started life as an easy to transmit group of
Morse code letters and had no special meaning. Now, almost everyone
believes it stands for Save Our Souls.
A humorous example of a backronym is the sport golf. Some people have
said that this name is an acronym for the phrase Gentlemen Only, Ladies
Forbidden. Actually, this is nonsense; the word golf never meant this.
The term comes from ‘gowf’, the original Scottish name for the sport.
Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden is simply an example of people making
up a funny meaning for a word. It is a backronym.
Another type of backronym is when the words from an existing acronym
are changed for some reason. A good example of this is the expression
‘DVD’. When the DVD was invented, it was used show movies and other
images and was initially called a ‘Digital Video Disc’. Now, however,
DVD’s are used more often to store large amounts of computer data and
the original meaning of Digital Video Disc has changed to Digital
Versatile Disc.
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