問題詳情

III. Discourse Structure: 10%The word acronym was coined in the United States around the 1940s. Some of the older acronyms—wordsmade up of the initial letters or syllables of other words—are so much a part of modern speech that their originsare largely forgotten. Radar, for example, stands for “radio detection and ranging,” and similarly, laser is short forlight amplification by the simulated emission of radiation.More modern is the medical term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Dating from the early1980s, it is too new for its origin as an acronym to be forgotten. 31 Also, it trips easily off the tongue like anormal word.32 One of the earliest examples is Gestapo, which stands for Geheime Staats-Polizei, “Secret StatePolice.” The Gestapo was organized by Hermann Göring in Prussia in 1933 and covered all Germany by thefollowing year.33 ASH, for example, stands for the Action on Smoking and Health. A tear is a potent symbol of thecompassion and social concern of the church. In its very early days the EAR fund changed accordingly to TheEvangelical Alliance Relief fund and made its mark as TEAR Fund.The full form of VIP, like those of the radar and laser, is never heard, the acronym being so well assimilatedinto the language. VIP dates back to the 1930s, and is American in origin. It stands for “very important person”and may have begun as military slang for a high-ranking guest. 34When present-day society is not probing for life on other planets, its interest focuses on market forces andspending powers. The boom years of the 1980s spawned a whole clutch of economic acronyms such as yuppieand dinkie. But what of the recession-ridden nineties? 35 They said, “With children off our hands and nomortgage, we are now the glammies (greying, leisured affluent, middle-aged spenders) and woopies (well-offolder people). We still believe we are young despite physical evidence to the contrary!” 

(A) Some organizations begin with a punchy acronym and then work out an appropriate title to fit. 
(B) It has been in use as an adjective since the mid-1940s. 
(C) It seems that granny holds the economic key and has been labeled accordingly. 
(D) Organizations are often more comfortably known by their acronyms than by their cumbersome full titles. 
(E) It is mostly written in longhand. (AB) It is almost always written in uppercase letters.

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