Full forms of common abbreviations that you never paid attention to
Imagine saying this to somebody – I found the client location using Global Positioning System (GPS) and drove up there in my Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) to be in time for my 12 Post Meridiem (PM) meeting.
Acronyms/Abbreviations have become a part of our daily life. Many of them reduce complexities, save time and make things more understandable in communication. They have become so integral to our communication that many a time we use them without questioning what they actually stand for! While that probably doesn’t affect us much, there’s no harm in knowing, is there?
“brb, ttyl ok? wow, I saved a ‘ton’ of time with those acronyms.”
– Stephen Colbert
So here is a list of the most commonly used abbreviations and acronyms along with their full forms, that we probably never paid attention to!
BC/AD (Time)
BC stands for Before Christ
AD stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for “in the year of the Lord”.
BC is used for counting years or denoting dates before Jesus Christ was born, while AD is used for after he was born.
PS (Letter/emails)
PS stands for Post Scriptum, which is Latin for “written after”. It is used at the end of a letter or an email to add extra information or information you missed earlier or as an afterthought after you’ve written and signed the letter.
RSVP (Invitation)
RSVP stands for répondez, s’il vous plait, which is French for “Please respond” or literally, “reply if you please”. Used in invitations, it is used to tell the sender of the invitation whether you accept or decline the invitation.
LCD (Electronic devices)
LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display. It is a technology used for displays in computer monitors, televisions, notebooks, smartphones and other devices. It allows displays to be much thinner than the heavy and bulky CRT (cathode ray tube) displays.
DJ (Music)
DJ stands for Disc Jockey. Most of us are familiar with DJs- the people who record music from different sources and perform for a live or broadcast audience as well as create their own mixes.
UFO (Fiction/ Science fiction)
UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. The acronym was coined in 1953 by the United States Air Force for reports of flying objects having unusual features not conforming to known missile or aircraft type. They are often associated with claims of extraterrestrial life and government conspiracy theories but majority of them are regular objects such as aircrafts, balloons or astronomical objects such as meteors.
AKA (Names)
AKA stands for “Also Known As”. It is used to introduce aliases, nicknames, pseudonyms, titles etc. For example, in the famous series Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen is a.k.a Mother of Dragons and Khaleesi.
RIP (Deaths)
RIP stands for Requiescat in pace, which is Latin for “rest in peace”. Used in epitaphs on gravestones and obituaries, it is an expression wishing eternal rest and peace to someone who has died.
SCUBA (Diving)
SCUBA stands for Self-contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. The term was originally used to refer to the breathing apparatus developed during World War 2 by Christian J. Lambertsen for underwater warfare. Later, the acronym SCUBA came to be used as a word as in scuba diving.
OK (Everyday speech)
The 2-letter word, OK, is possibly one of the most used words by people around the world and while the origins are not exactly known, it is believed to have been an acronym that stood for “Oll Korrect”, a humorous misspelling of “all correct”. Much like LOL and ROTFL today, in the 1830s (when it first appeared), a fad existed in the U.S. of “comical misspellings” and forming acronyms based on colloquial speech patterns!
AM/PM (Time)
AM stands for Ante Meridiem, which is Latin for “Before midday” or “Before noon”
PM stands for Post Meridiem, which is Latin for “After midday” or “After noon”
Cc/Bcc (Emails)
Cc stands for Carbon Copy (recipient gets a copy of the email)
Bcc stands for Blind Carbon Copy (recipient gets a copy of the mail without the knowledge of other recipients)
GPS (Location)
GPS stands for Global Positioning System; it is a global navigation satellite system created by the United States government that provides location and time information anywhere on the Earth
SUV (Cars)
SUV stands for Sports Utility Vehicle, also sometimes called a Sports Utility Wagon
SMS (Mobile Phones)
SMS stands for Short Message Service; It is the text messaging service component of phones, which uses standardized phone protocols as defined by the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) series of standards.
I.E. (Written Communication)
I.E. stands for id est, which is Latin for “that is”. It’s used to convey the sense of “that means” or “in other words”. For example, Frogs are amphibians i.e. they can survive in both land and water.
USP (Business/ Management)
USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition; it refers to an aspect of an object/organization that differentiates it from similar objects/organizations.
E.G. (Written Communication)
E.G. stands for exempli gratia, which is Latin for “for example”.
PhD (DEGREE)
PhD stands for “Doctor of Philosophy” (English) or Philosophiae Doctor (Latin). It is the highest academic degree awarded by universities in most countries.
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