recursive acronym

recursive acronym
 n.

   A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose
   acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other
   acronyms/abbreviations. The original of the breed may have been TINT
   ("TINT Is Not TECO"). The classic examples were two MIT editors called
   EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More
   recently, there is a Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply
   Recursively), and {GNU} (q.v., sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not Unix!"
   -- and a company with the name Cygnus, which expands to "Cygnus, Your
   GNU Support" (though Cygnus people say this is a {backronym}). The GNU
   recursive acronym may have been patterned on XINU, "XINU Is Not Unix"
   -- a particularly nice example because it is a mirror image, a
   backronym, and a recursive acronym. See also {mung}, {EMACS}.
    

recursive acronym

   <convention> A hackish (and especially {MIT}) tradition is to
   choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to
   themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations.  The classic
   examples were two MIT editors called {EINE} ("EINE Is Not
   {Emacs}") and {ZWEI} ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially").  More
   recently, there is a {Scheme} compiler called {LIAR} (Liar
   Imitates Apply Recursively), and {GNU} stands for "GNU's Not
   Unix!" - and a company with the name {CYGNUS}, which expands
   to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support".

   See also {mung}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-04-28)