Words filled with meaning

Why you should never say "ATM machine"

Compared to other languages, English employs a relatively high number of acronyms and initialisms. According to linguists, this happens because English words tend to be short, and the word order is quite strict. While initialisms are easy to distinguish because they are not pronounced as a word, we don’t always recognize acronyms, especially when they refer to everyday things. Here are 11 popular acronyms and initialisms and their meaning.

When the scuba was invented in 1952 by Christian J. Lambertsen, it had a different name that, coincidentally, was also an acronym. Lambertsen had named his invention LARU, or ‘Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit’, but he changed it when it was time to apply for a patent. The name in the patent application was SCUBA, after ‘Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus’. Nowadays, scuba is a word of its own and has developed into words like scuba-diving.

In 1955, scientists who had developed a microwave radiation technology patented it as MASER or ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. A few years later, American physicist Gordon Gould developed a similar technology, this time using light instead of microwaves. Following the pattern of MASER, he registered it as LASER or ‘Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. While the scientific community initially referred to this technology as the "optical maser", Gould’s acronym quickly became the preferred term.

If you’ve ever used the phrase "ATM machine", you need to know that you’re saying ‘machine’ twice. But don’t worry, this is a common error stemming from the fact that many people don’t know that ATM stands for ‘Automated Teller Machine’, a name that creates a parallelism between ATMs and bank tellers. Although the ATM was installed in 1967 in a London bank, no one really knows who was the first to call it ‘ATM’ instead of ‘cash-dispensing machine’.

The use of radio waves as a detection mechanism dates back to the late 19th century, but it was not properly developed until the 1920s, when the U.S. Navy started creating the first modern radars. By the Second World War, most military powers were using radio wave detection, but the technology did not have a name. In 1940, Lieutenant-Commanders Samuel M. Tucker and F. R. Furth of the U.S. Navy decided to come up with a code name and, after trying several phrases, landed on ‘Radio Detection And Ranging’, or RADAR.

If you are not familiar with the term CAPTCHA, you might recognize it as the test used by websites to make sure that you are human and not a robot. While clicking a box or selecting a picture is simple for a human, it’s extremely hard for a machine. What does the term CAPTCHA stand for? ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’. The name contains a reference to the Turing test —a method used to check if machines can behave like humans— and the acronym also functions as a portmanteau of ‘capture’ and ‘gotcha’.

If you follow international politics, you might have heard about NATO, a military alliance between several countries, the U.S. included. But have you ever wondered what NATO stands for? This alliance was established with the signing of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty by several European and North American nations, and its name stands for ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization’.

The discussions around GIF tend to focus on whether it’s pronounced "gif" or "jif", and one would think that the meaning of the acronym would shed some light on the matter, but it doesn’t. GIF stands for ‘Graphics Interchange Format’, a reference to its development to transfer compressed images across computers. While the ‘g’ in ‘graphic’ would suggest that the correct pronunciation is "gif", creator Steve Wilhite has stated that the acronym was modelled after the peanut butter brand Jif, and should be pronounced in the same way.

The BBC is one of the most famous broadcasters in the world, and its name is so iconic that it has evolved from an initialism to the official name for the company. Established in 1923 as the British Broadcasting Company, initialized as BBC, it became officially known as the BBC when the company transitioned from private to public. The BBC has become so connected with standard British culture that "BBC English" has been historically promoted as the standard speech for newscasters and network announcers.

Nowadays, we use the term CEO in corporate settings, but did you know that its origins are military and political? The first records of CEO as ‘Chief Executive Officer’ date back to legal and government texts from the 1780s, and the term is used in reference to leaders and state governors. However, the term would not become popular until the 1970s, when it was adopted by the corporate world for the highest-ranking person in a company.

When acronyms for an invention include a name, it’s often the name of its inventor. But sometimes, as it happened with the TASER, they include a name that has nothing to do with the person behind the invention. The TASER was developed by Jack Cover, but its acronym stands for ‘Tom A. Swift's Electric Rifle’. Who is Tom Swift? The protagonist of the 1911 science fiction novel_._ Cover added the ‘A’ initial to the name to make the acronym easier to pronounce.

When the U.S. Postal Service created its postal code system, also known as a ZIP code, they used an acronym for the name, but the meaning of the acronym was not really important. ZIP stands for ‘Zone Improvement Plan’, but this phrase doesn’t make complete sense. This is because the USPS was more interested in using the name ZIP to convey the idea that using postal codes would make deliveries faster and more efficient than what these letters stood for.

This is what the presidents call it

Ever wonder why these presidential codes sound so strange?

Presidents seem to speak a vocabulary of their own. There’s the armored limousine known as "The Beast," the mysterious "Biscuit" tied to nuclear command, and a presidential retreat once called "Shangri-La." Even familiar terms like POTUS and the White House have stories that reach much further back than most people realize. Here are 10 presidential names, nicknames, and code words, along with the fascinating stories behind them.

The massive desk in the Oval Office may look like an ordinary piece of presidential furniture, but its history stretches back to an Arctic exploration ship.

In 1854, the British ship HMS Resolute became trapped in Arctic ice while searching for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin. The crew eventually abandoned the vessel. A year later, an American whaling crew discovered the ship drifting in the ice, and the United States bought it, restored it, and returned it to Britain as a gesture of goodwill. When the ship was later retired, Queen Victoria had some of its oak timbers turned into an elaborate desk. In 1880, she presented it to President Rutherford B. Hayes. The desk spent years in different parts of the White House before Jacqueline Kennedy moved it into the Oval Office in 1961 for President John F. Kennedy. Several presidents later chose different desks, but the Resolute Desk eventually became one of the most recognizable pieces of furniture in the White House.

You've probably seen the president's armored limousine roll through a city on the news. Most people just call it "The Beast." But it also goes by "Cadillac One," and Secret Service radios use a third name entirely, "Stagecoach." The story behind those names starts in the sky, not on the road.

In December 1953, an Eastern Air Lines flight and a plane carrying President Eisenhower answered to the same call sign, 8610, in the same stretch of airspace. To stop that from happening again, the Air Force created a single name for any aircraft carrying the president: Air Force One. The Secret Service later applied that same idea to the limousine, giving it its own name, Stagecoach, and its own private radio handle. Two identical Cadillac Ones now travel with every motorcade, so no one outside the Secret Service knows for sure which one is real.

Today, the presidential retreat tucked into Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains is known as Camp David. But its first name sounded much more exotic.

Franklin D. Roosevelt established the mountain retreat in 1942. He called it "Shangri-La," borrowing the name from the fictional Himalayan paradise in James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon. The name remained through the rest of Roosevelt’s presidency and into Harry Truman’s administration. When Dwight D. Eisenhower became president in 1953, however, he thought "Shangri-La" sounded a little too grand for a rustic mountain retreat. He changed the name to Camp David in honor of his father, David Eisenhower, and his young grandson, David Eisenhower. The new name was less mysterious and much more personal.

It’s hard to imagine Washington, D.C., without the White House. But for much of its history, "The White House" wasn’t actually its official name.

During the 19th century, government documents usually called the building the "Executive Mansion" or the "President’s House." Citizens, however, had already been calling it the White House for years. The nickname was a natural one. The building’s sandstone exterior had been painted and whitewashed, giving it the pale appearance that inspired the familiar name. The informal name finally became official in 1901. President Theodore Roosevelt preferred "The White House" to the rather stiff "Executive Mansion" and ordered the words placed on official stationery.

The United States Marine Band has a title that sounds almost like a family nickname: "The President’s Own." And there’s a good reason for it.

Congress created the band in 1798, but its close relationship with the White House took shape a few years later. On New Year’s Day in 1801, John Adams invited the musicians to perform inside the still-unfinished Executive Mansion. Thomas Jefferson took the relationship even further. A music lover and violinist himself, Jefferson hired the Marine Band to perform at his inauguration and gave it the affectionate title "The President’s Own." The band has been a fixture at presidential inaugurations ever since. The nickname has endured for more than two centuries, making the Marine Band one of the oldest musical traditions tied to the presidency.

Whenever the president strides across the South Lawn to offer a final wave before lifting off, the green helicopter rising against the skyline is hailed worldwide as "Marine One." But the moniker was never tied to a single helicopter.

It belongs to whichever Marine Corps aircraft, usually a VH-3D Sea King or a newer VH-92A Patriot, happens to be carrying the president that day. The rule follows the same logic that created Air Force One after that 1953 mix-up over the East Coast. Swap the helicopter for a private jet, and the call sign changes instantly to "Executive One." Air traffic controllers still use that same system today, decades after a near collision first made it necessary.

Few objects associated with the presidency have a nickname as harmless-sounding as "the biscuit." Yet the small laminated card carried by the president is connected to one of the most serious responsibilities imaginable: authorizing a nuclear strike.

The nickname dates back to the Cold War era, when nuclear launch codes were reportedly kept in sealed packets. The packaging inspired military personnel to use the nickname "SAS cookies," which eventually evolved into the more familiar "biscuit."

Every news broadcast today treats POTUS and FLOTUS as if they were always part of the language. FLOTUS is newer, but POTUS goes way back.

In the 1890s, telegraph operators had a very practical reason for shortening "President of the United States." Government agencies paid for telegrams by the letter, so trimming a long title could save time and money. The solution was simple: P-O-T-U-S. The abbreviation eventually found its way into government paperwork and Secret Service communications, where short forms were especially useful. FLOTUS, meaning "First Lady of the United States," came much later. The Secret Service adopted it as a radio shorthand during the Reagan administration in the early 1980s. What started as a way to save a few telegraph characters eventually became part of everyday political language.

"Rawhide." "Renegade." "Lancer." They sound like names from an old Western movie, but these Secret Service codenames have a very practical purpose.

The tradition grew out of a time when presidential security teams sometimes communicated over radio systems that weren’t encrypted. Saying a president’s actual name over the air could reveal information to anyone listening. A codename offered a simple layer of protection. The names also follow a family tradition. Members of a first family generally receive codenames beginning with the same letter. John F. Kennedy was "Lancer," while Jacqueline Kennedy was "Lace." And presidents don’t necessarily have their names chosen for them. The White House Communications Agency prepares lists of possible call signs, and the president can select one. So behind every memorable codename is a little bit of security planning and, sometimes, personal preference.

Air Force One gets most of the attention, but the president also needs a secure way to travel when the destination is beyond the reach of an airport runway. That’s where "Ground Force One" comes in.

The nickname was never officially created by presidential order. Instead, it emerged naturally among reporters and staff members covering presidential campaigns and road trips. It refers to heavily protected motor coaches used for presidential travel. They’re equipped with features such as secure communications systems, run-flat tires and substantial armor. Observers naturally borrowed the best-known presidential transportation nickname and adapted it for the road: Air Force One became Ground Force One.