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What's the Worst Acronym You've Ever Heard?

Posted by Cliff on from the the-truth-is-always-stranger-than-fiction dept.

mmaddox asks: "As a software developer, I've consulted on many projects - projects conceived in the twisted mind of management and marketing and cursed with bizarre, often hysterically funny names. Of course, these names lead to the adoption of the dreaded acronym. Most recently, I've discouraged the name selections of a few clients, in particular, the Private Inline Security System (a silly "personal firewall" - the client didn't even THINK of using an acronym) and Cross-section Heads-Up Digitizer (an engineering bit for roadway construction - anyone remember the movie?). There must be millions of these things out there. What is the worst acronym you've ever had the *ahem* pleasure of dealing with?" And in typical Slashdot fashion, it just wouldn't be the same without taking a dig at Microsoft. If you click here and look at the #2 result (of 44), then you may see one of funniest acronyms I've ever seen come out of the corporate culture. Of course, if you click on that particular link it looks like someone at the Borg have recognized their error and is trying to rewrite history, changing the "tool" into a "utility". God bless the Google cache! If you think you've seen acronyms to beat this one, please share!

7 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. by grammar+nazi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Has anybody ever played Acrophobia? I don't know if this game is still around or not, but they would give you a series of letters and everybody would come up with an acronym for the letters. Afterwords, everyone would vote on the best acronym that somebody would come up with.

    I worked on a project by the name SCARFACE for a while. This sounds like a cool acronym, until you figure out that it's just a Schopping Cart And Register For Automated Credit Exchanges.

    --

    Keeping /. free of grammatical errors for ~5 years.
  2. Re:WinCE by the+phantom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ever notice how there's Windows CE, Windows Me, and Windows NT? Put it together, and what do you have?
    br CEMeNT

    --
    Rhapsody in Numbers
  3. DNS: no no, not that one... by Spoing · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...the imfamous one; Gate's "Digital Nervous System".

    Just hearing it is sickening and depressing at the same time.

    Promoting that phrase showed how little MS (and Gates specifically) knew about this Internet thing -- or it was intentional to cause confusion and like other attempts to weaken anything not invented at Microsoft. I vote for stupidity or simple envy wrapped up in a Freduan slip over mallace, though it's not a confident vote. Either way, truely scary.

    --
    A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
  4. I haven't seen TWAIN mentioned yet... by IPFreely · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I always liked TWAIN drivers (those nice drivers for capturing images from scanners, cameras and whatever.
    Technology Without An Interesting Name.

    --
    There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
  5. Re:And whats the deepest non-recursive one? by pthisis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    GPCL = GTK Pattern Creation Lab
    GTK = Gimp Toolkit (original expansion)
    GIMP = GNU Image Manipulation Program
    GNU = GNU's not Unix

    --
    rage, rage against the dying of the light
  6. STOMITH by megabeck42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Shoot The Other Machine In The Head. An Explanation. I'm serious.

    --
    fnord.
  7. TANSTAAFL by nuggz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

    The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -Heinlein

    A pretty good book, now if only he could write an ENDING in any of his books