ROTD, or, Riddle Of The Day
Click to enlarge.
First off, let’s clarify for those who don’t know the meaning of all these common initialisms:
-
CUP = Cambridge University Press (UK).
-
NIH NCI = National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute (US).
-
AFRL = Air Force Research Lab (US).
-
FBIS = Foreign Broadcast Information Services (US).
-
BLM = Bureau of Land Management (US).
The answer to this easy riddle: the pages referenced above from their sites all speak of “acryonyms”.
As this word is absent from the vocabulary of the renown Cambridge Dictionary (but obviously used in one of its pages), in order to find its meaning one has to look in another dictionary, e.g. that one.
Having reported this amusing occurrence to the CUP (which happens to be “the oldest publishing house in the world”), this is their nice reply:
Dear M[...],
Thank you for reporting this issue with the entry for ‘backronym’ in the online Cambridge Dictionary. Customer feedback is important to us for product development. Our editorial team have advised that you are correct and that this will be amended in a future update.
Regards,
A[...]
Technical Support
Cambridge University Press & Assessment
Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge, CB2 8EA
QED.
