The Word Snoop

by Ursula Dubosarsky

  Sometimes, groups of people who use a lot of acronyms in their work forget that other people have no idea what they’re talking about. Every profession seems to have its own set of peculiar acronyms. But here’s a tip from the Word Snoop—don’t despair if you come across a really unusual acronym. Go to the Internet and look up an acronym-finder website, and it will explain unknown acronyms for you.

  LLL (Latin, Latin, Latin)

  Funnily enough, a few of the really common acronyms we use in everyday life don’t even come from English but from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. This is because Latin was used in schools and universities as a common language in Europe right up until at least the fifteenth century. So AM and PM, which you know mean “morning” and “afternoon,” actually stand for the Latin words Ante Meridiem and Post Meridiem, meaning “before midday” and “after midday.”

  And PS, those two letters you put at the end of an e-mail or a letter when you want to add something extra, stands for Post Scriptum, which means “after writing.” Then there’s i.e. or id est, which means “that is”; and e.g. or exempli gratia, which means “for example.” And, of course, our old friend etc.—et cetera, which means “and the rest of them.”

  Now, what about AD and BC? Well, AD dates back to the sixth century AD, and is short for Anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord.” The “Lord” is the Christian leader Jesus Christ, who was determined to have been born in AD 1. It wasn’t until several hundred years later that people felt they wanted an acronym for all those centuries before AD. By then English was more popular than Latin, so BC simply stands for Before Christ. (No translation needed!)

  Well-mannered acronyms

  AD and BC come from the Christian religion, but they’ve been used in many countries and cultures over the years, including non-Christian ones. More and more, though, you’ll see BCE and CE instead, which stand for Before Common Era and Common Era. Some people like it better than AD and BC, because it doesn’t sound so religious. It’s still referring to the birth of Jesus Christ, of course, just not saying it OUT LOUD (shhh!).

  Another foreign language acronym that’s also rather polite is RSVP, which stands for the French Respondez S’il Vous Plait, meaning “please answer.” This was adopted in English as a delicate way of reminding people that it’s good manners to answer the invitation, ORELSE!

  Dot dot dot

  When acronyms were less common, it was usual to write them in capital letters with periods after each initial—like U.S.A. (United States of America) or C.A.T. (Computed Axial Tomography) scan. Nowadays, while the periods are more often left out, the capitals still remain—USA, CAT—to show it was once an acronym.

  Sometimes a word will become so common that both the periods and the capitals disappear, and hardly anyone remembers that it was ever an acronym. So L.A.S.E.R. (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) became LASER and is now just plain old laser. That’s what you call a really successful acronym. (Well done!)

  And finally the backronym . . .

  Sometimes acronyms have been worked out backward to fit a word that already exists. They’re called backronyms. People do this for lots of different reasons: * to make you laugh, e.g., PICNIC—Problem In Chair Not In Computer

  * to tell you what to do, e.g., DEAR—Drop Everything And Read

  * to give something complicated a simple name, so that it’s easier to identify or sell, e.g., the computer language BASIC—Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

  * to help you remember something important, e.g., the Olympic gold-medalist Cathy Freeman used the backronym FLAG to help her win races—Fly Leg-speed Attack Go!

  * as a kind of brain teaser, where the words that make up the acronym actually explain what it means, e.g., SPAM—Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages

  And then there are the Word Snoop’s favorite backronyms, the ones that form a secret code. During WWII, soldiers who were posted overseas would write backronyms, using the names of countries, on the backs of letters they sent home. Now, if the person receiving it didn’t know it was a backronym, they would just frown and say, “How very peculiar!” But if they understood . . . aha!

  Don’t get too excited, though; they were mainly love letters. So ITALY on the back of an envelope meant “I Trust And Love You” and HOLLAND meant “Hope Our Love Lasts And Never Dies.” (Ahh.)

  Hmm. What do you think MALAYA stood for? Well, it could be:My Auntie Lucy Ate Your Apple

  or

  My Ardent Lips Await Your Arrival

  I bet you could make up some amazing backronyms out of the names of countries yourself. Go on, give it a try—it doesn’t have to be a love letter (that’s a relief!). Any sort of secret message will do. Here are a few the Word Snoop just made up:JAPAN (Jelly And Pies Are Nice)

  SYRIA (Send Your Red Iguana Away)

  Why don’t you try with TONGA or CHILE? Or, for a real challenge, what about UZBEKISTAN!

  Me again, Word Snoops! My guess is you’re getting very good at cracking codes by now. See how you do with this one. (Hint: Think about what a lipogram is.)

  REAE AN ASTARLY COES

  Answers

  ANAGRAMS

  1. North. South, East, West

  2. Silent

  3. Astronomer

  4. The Morse Code

  5. Hibernates

  LIPOGRAMS

  1. Lipogram on E

  2. Lipogram on A

  3. Lipogram on O

  Dear Snoops,

  Is anyone watching? Or listening?

  Are you sure? Okay then, so we can talk.

  Can you speak Greek? It’s a handy language for

  us Word Snoops. You’ve probably noticed a few

  Greek words in this book already. This is because

  in the old days at universities people often learned

  ancient Greek so they could read all the wonderful

  books the ancient Greeks wrote—comedy, tragedy,

  history, mathematics, philosophy—you name it.

  People’s minds were so full of Greek words, they

  kept slipping them into English.

  Maybe one day you’ll be able to learn ancient

  Greek too. In the meantime, remember the Greek

  alphabet is different from ours. When you change

  a Greek word to English, you have to

  transliterate it—change from one alphabet to

  another. It’s a bit tricky, but useful for writing

  secret messages…

  Your friend,

  θε υορδ σνοοπ . . .

  5.

  Is that another Greek word?

  Palindromes

  Palindromes are words or sentences that are spelled the same backward or forward. The word palindromecomes from two ancient Greek words—palin, meaning “back again,” and dromos, meaning “running”—so it’s a word that runs forward and then back again. Look closely at the words EYE, NOON, and RADAR. It doesn’t matter at which end you start writing the word, it’s spelled the same. This means they are palindromes.

  The ancient Greeks and Romans enjoyed making palindromes, especially for inscriptions on public monuments, but lots of languages have them. In English, the longest common word that is a palindrome is REDIVIDER. But in Finnish, the word for a soapstone seller, believe it or not, is a palindrome—SAIPPUAKIVIKAUPPIAS. (Now that’s an unusual occupation—soapstone, anyone?)

  Palindromes can be found in names like Hannah, Otto, Pip, or Aviva, or places like Glenelg (where they even have an annual palindrome festival!). And then there’s always ABBA, the Swedish pop group. But a whole sentence can be a palindrome. Have a look at the ones below. Ignore the punctuation and the gaps, just look at the letters.

  Go, dog!

  Was it a cat I saw?

  Don’t nod.

  Do geese see God?

  Believe it or not, in 1969 the French writer Georges Perec wrote a palindromic story that was 500 words long! The whole story reads
the same backward as forward. It would have been very difficult to do, and it was a very strange piece of writing. In fact, some people who read it didn’t realize it was a palindrome and thought he had gone mad . . .

  The comedian Weird Al Yankovic wrote a song of palindromes about singer Bob Dylan. Try singing this:Madam, I’m Adam

  Too hot to hoot

  No lemons, no melon

  Too bad I hid a boot

  Wow! (Hey, that’s a palindrome too.)

  I wonder if you can make up your own palindrome song? First, you need a supply of words. To get you started, try to figure out the palindromes on the opposite page, but I’m sure you can think of lots more yourself.

  Palindromes

  1. Another name for father

  2. The sound of popcorn cooking

  3. More red

  4. A kind of canoe

  5. If you’re in the Scouts, you’ll try to do a good one of these every day

  6. The sound a horn makes

  7. Another word for peek

  Mnemonics

  Many Venomous Earwigs Munch Jelly Sausages

  Underneath Nests.

  I think this sentence is trying to tell me something—and not just about venomous earwigs. This is actually a mnemonic (pronounced nem-on-ik). A mnemonic is the word for tricks we can play with our minds to help us remember things. Like the order of the planets in the solar system . . .

  Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter

  Saturn Uranus Neptune

  Do you see? The beginning letters of each word in that first sentence stand for the beginning letters of the planets in the order they appear in the sky. For some reason, it’s easier to remember a silly sentence than the names of the planets themselves.

  The word mnemonic comes from one of the Titans in ancient Greek mythology. Her name was Mnemosyne (Nem-oss-in-ee) and she represented memory. In the ancient world, memory was especially important when there weren’t many books and not many people learned to read. People used to memorize pages and pages of the books everyone wanted to hear, like The Odyssey or the Bible, and hundreds of types of mnemonics were developed to help them do this. Nowadays we would find it incredible that people could remember that much, but of course back then they didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t until the fifteenth century, after the printing press was invented, that the need for such amazing acts of memory fell away.

  But not totally! There are still things we need to remember. When the Word Snoop was at school, she learned the Great Lakes from west to east across Michigan with the sentence: Sam’s Horse Must Eat Oats—Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, Ontario.(You’d be surprised how often this information comes in handy . . . )

  There are many different types of mnemonics. For example, to remember the difference between spelling desert and dessert, you can say “the sweet one has two sugars.” (Two S’s, get it?) And what about the rhyme to remember the number of days in each month (“Thirty days has September . . .” and so on). That’s a mnemonic too. And have you seen the episode of The Simpsons when Bart and Lisa help Marge to study for a big exam by putting all the facts she needs to remember to the tune of a song? I bet your teacher or your parents might know some mnemonic tricks like this. (Go on, ask them.)

  You can have lots of fun with mnemonics. In music, children often learn a mnemonic for the order the notes come on the staff: Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit (EGBDF). But look what other people have made up to remember the same thing: Empty Garbage Before Dad Freaks; Elephants Go Bouncing Down Freeways; Evil Godzilla Buys Dog Food.

  Here’s one the Word Snoop just invented—can you guess what it stands for?

  Remarkable Children Understand Challenging Books

  (Hint: Think of the five largest countries.)

  Why don’t you make up a mnemonic of your own? Come on, Word Snoops—have fun, and improve your memory at the same time!

  Oxymorons

  Oxymoron. (Don’t you mean foxymoron? No, I mean oxymoron!) It’s one of those words you don’t forget once you’ve heard it. But what on earth does it mean?

  Like lots of unusual words in English, it comes from the language of the ancient Greeks—oxys, which means “sharp,” and moros, which means “silly” or “dull.” It’s used to describe expressions that contain two opposite ideas—in other words, something that is “sharply dull.”

  Hmm, maybe some examples would help. Has anyone ever said to you, “that’s old news”? This is an oxymoron because it’s contradicting itself—news can’t be old, because it’s new. And then there’s that song by Simon and Garfunkel, “The Sound of Silence.” How can silence have sound? So that’s an oxymoron too. And so is the cartoon character Charlie Brown’s favorite line—“Good grief!”

  Writers have been using oxymorons for thousands of years, all over the world, in many languages and cultures. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said, “To lead the people, walk behind them,” and the English playwright William Shakespeare wrote, “I do believeher, though I know she lies.” The nineteenth-century French novelist Victor Hugo spoke of “the pleasure of being sad ,” and in the twentieth century, the American poet T. S. Eliot described the “pleasant whining of a mandolin.” Well, they all sound like very interesting gentlemen . . .

  Because oxymorons have a way of grabbing your attention, you will often find them in advertising. You know, things like genuine imitation or seriously funny. Movie titles also use oxymorons to make you look twice—think of Back to the Future, Eyes Wide Shut, or True Lies.

  And then there are those people who like to use oxymorons as a form of humor. Like your teacher might say, “I’ve got some lovely home-work for you today.” (Ha ha.) Or, “I want a compulsory volunteer to clean up the playground.” (Hilarious.) Well, you could always answer back, “Excuse me, you are clearly confused.”

  I wonder why oxymorons are so appealing? Perhaps it’s because an oxymoron is really a kind of paradox—something that appears to be true and false at the same time. The world can sometimes seem so large and strange, and many human experiences just don’t make sense. As the great poet Walt Whitman wrote, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. (I am large—I contain multitudes.)” (Gosh!)

  Maybe an oxymoron is a way for a writer to express those mixed-up feelings—and hopefully for a reader to try to understand them. So next time you’re writing a story or a poem or a report on something, why don’t you try putting in an oxymoron or two?

  In the meantime, try spotting the oxymorons on the next page in the story that the Word Snoop made up about a little dog.

  A tragicomedy of a lost dog

  A gigantic Chihuahua was hurrying slowly

  along the soft, stony road. He came to

  a low tower of delicious rotten turnips.

  Daintily he wolfed them down. But

  then his tummy felt as light as a bag of

  cement, so he decided to have a long nap.

  Instantly his owner finally arrived.

  “Fluffy!” whispered his owner in a loud

  voice, fondly pulling the dog’s hairless fur.

  “You darling little monster. I think I might

  have definitely missed you.”

  Word Snoops, guess what time it is? That’s right—code time! I hope this one’s not too tricky for you. (Hint: Palindromes read forward and . . . ?)

  TAHT YAS OT YPPAH YREV M ’ I

  Answers

  PALINDROMES

  1. Dad

  2. Pop

  3. Redder

  4. Kayak

  5. Deed

  6. Toot

  7. Peep

  Dear Snoops,

  It’s time for some FUN!

  YAY!!!

  Okay, calm down for a moment. We’re going to

  play some games, but you’ll still need to have

  your brains switched on.

  You see, you can play games with bats and balls

  and toys and a hundred other things, but you


  can also have a great time playing with words.

  You can play around with the sounds, or the

  meanings, or both at once—and anything else

  you can find.

  Come on, let’s play!

  Your ludic friend,

  The Ord-way Noop-say

  P.S. What do you think the Word Snoop’s

  favorite game is? Yep, you guessed it—

  I Spy!

  6.

  Who likes playing games?

  Pig Latin

  Have you ever wanted to speak a secret language? Here’s an easy one to learn. It’s called Pig Latin.

  Now, Latin is the language that the ancient Romans used to speak, and you know what pigs are. (Hint: They go oink, oink!) Can pigs really speak Latin? Well, no, actually. Pig Latin has got nothing to do with Latin or pigs. It’s just a funny kind of language-game children and adults have been playing for years. Like rhyming slang, it may have started as a kind of thieves’ language, a way of disguising what you were saying to confuse anyone who might have been listening.

  Even though nobody really knows who started it, or why it’s called Pig Latin, we do know that it’s been around since at least the 1920s—in the playground, in movies, in songs and in stories. The famous old movie star Ginger Rogers sang a song in Pig Latin in the movie Gold Diggers of 1933. And if you ever get a chance, listen to the wonderful folk singer Lead Belly singing “The Pig Latin Song,” which he recorded way back in the 1940s. Do some snooping and see if you can still find a recording of it online.