Everyday Acronyms & Initialisms Quiz

Answer: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Due to its everyday usage, it can also be written Nato, whilst in French it is OTAN (Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord). Initially set up during the Cold War, NATO was an alliance designed to prevent the outbreak of war, as an attack on one member state would be considered as an attack on all of them.

In 1954 the Soviet Union suggested that it should join NATO (possibly to weaken the alliance), but were turned down and when West Germany entered NATO in 1955 the Communist countries of Eastern Europe formed the Warsaw Pact. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall several countries that were members of the Warsaw Pact (which broke up in 1991) have joined NATO, bringing the total number of member states to 28 when Croatia and Albania joined in 2009.

In its history NATO has used military force to intervene in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as the naval operations against Somali pirates (from 2009) and sending training missions to Iraq after the Iraq War.

Answer: Absent WithOut Leave

Some people include 'official,' but all leave is official in the British Army and going AWOL is a serious offence that can land a soldier in military prison. The acronym has since entered into everyday English to mean someone who has disappeared without letting friends/relatives know where he/she has gone.

Answer: RAdio Detection And Ranging

The British were the first to develop a workable detection system, but they only started looking into it due to fears that the Germans were developing a death-ray. The Americans came up with the name radar.

The naval equivalent, sonar, stands for SOund Navigation And Ranging.

Answer: GEheime STAatsPOlizei

Geheime Staatspolizei translates as Secret State Police and was active from 1933 to 1945.

Answer: Officer of the most excellent order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was introduced in 1917 by HM King George V and has five divisions, which are (in ascending order) member (MBE), officer (OBE), commander (CBE), knight commander (KBE) and knight grand cross (GBE).

Honorary knighthoods, given to those for whom the monarch of the UK is not their head of state, do not use the title 'Sir' (or Dame), but may use the post-nominals. Examples are Bob Geldoff KBE and Steven Spielberg KBE.

Answer: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Scuba, like Nato and radar, is an initialisation that due to common use has become a word in its own right. The initialisation was first used by the American military in World War Two to describe the rebreathers used by their combat frogmen.

Answer: It doesn't stand for anything - It is just a word

Posh is one of the best known 'bacronyms,' where people have reverse engineered a word to find an acronym. Other examples are "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden" for golf and "All Day I Dream About Sports" for Adidas (which is actually named after the founder of the company, Adi Dassler)

Answer: Personal Identification Number

PIN number is an example of RAS (redundant acronym syndrome) Syndrome, as it effectively means personal identification number number. Other examples would be HIV virus and ATM machine, but my favourite of these was a friend who was asking about standard SOP procedures (SOP meaning standard operating procedure), which I presume would be double RAS Syndrome?

Answer: Digital Versatile Disc

This is a bit of a disputed area, as some companies refer to it as Digital Video Disc, some as Digital Versatile Disc and some as simply DVD. This has led many (including Wikipedia) to state that there is no official abbreviation. However, as the DVD Forum includes the companies responsible for inventing the DVD, I will take their definition, which can be found in the FAQ section of their website!

Digital Video Disc is now considered to be an alternative, but you might not put video on the disc, you might want to put photos, music or work onto it - bringing us back to the versatility of this digital disc!

Answer: Post Meridiem

Literally translated, post meridiem is Latin for "After middday." AM stands for Ante Meridiem, or before midday. There are lots of everyday Latin acronyms and initialisations; e.g. (exempli gratia), i.e. (id est), P.S. (post scriptum), R.I.P. (Requiescat in pace) and N.B. (Nota bene) are just some of the better known ones.