A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym.[1] Other references followed,[2] however the concept was used as early as 1968 in John Brunner's science fiction novel Stand on Zanzibar. In the story, the acronym EPT (Education for Particular Task) later morphed into "Eptification for Particular Task".
Recursive acronyms typically form backwardly: either an existing ordinary acronym is given a new explanation of what the letters stand for, or a name is turned into an acronym by giving the letters an explanation of what they stand for, in each case with the first letter standing recursively for the whole acronym.
^"Puzzles and Paradoxes: Infinity in Finite Terms". Retrieved 23 April 2013.
^"WordSpy—Recursive Acronym". Archived from the original on 8 October 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
A recursiveacronym is an acronym that refers to itself, and appears most frequently in computer programming. The term was first used in print in 1979...
parsable by human readers or listeners. A special type of macronym, the recursiveacronym, has letters whose expansion refers back to the macronym itself. One...
you are; then ask him or her what recursion is." Recursiveacronyms are other examples of recursive humor. PHP, for example, stands for "PHP Hypertext...
the primary architect of the Hurd described the name as a mutually recursiveacronym: It's time [to] explain the meaning of "Hurd". "Hurd" stands for "Hird...
"@milliped @yararules YARA is an acronym for: YARA: Another RecursiveAcronym, or Yet Another Ridiculous Acronym. Pick your choice" (Tweet) – via Twitter...
actively maintain both the official and unofficial plugins. Nagios is a recursiveacronym: "Nagios Ain't Gonna Insist On Sainthood" – "sainthood" makes reference...
Interchange Format (GIF)—unofficially, the initials PNG stood for the recursiveacronym "PNG's not GIF". PNG supports palette-based images (with palettes...
Microsoft XNA (a recursiveacronym for XNA's not acronymed) is a freeware set of tools with a managed runtime environment that Microsoft Gaming developed...
free software. Stallman decided to call this operating system GNU (a recursiveacronym meaning "GNU's not Unix!"), basing its design on that of Unix, a proprietary...
Package Manager (RPM) (originally Red Hat Package Manager, now a recursiveacronym) is a free and open-source package management system. The name RPM...
The ZINC database (recursiveacronym: ZINC is not commercial) is a curated collection of commercially available chemical compounds prepared especially...
needed] The name giFT (giFT Internet File Transfer) is a so-called recursiveacronym, which means that it refers to itself in the expression for which...
JACK Audio Connection Kit (or JACK; a recursiveacronym) is a professional sound server API and pair of daemon implementations to provide real-time, low-latency...
SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle", a recursiveacronym for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language) is an RDF query language—that is, a semantic query language...
XINU Is Not Unix (XINU, a recursiveacronym), is an operating system for embedded systems, originally developed by Douglas Comer for educational use at...
Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems, its name is a recursiveacronym for Gambas Almost Means Basic. Gambas is also the word for prawns...
it both as a word alone and as a part of the acronymRecursiveacronym: an acronym that has the acronym itself as one of its components Acrostic: a writing...
the XMPP protocol which uses the GTK toolkit. The name Gajim is a recursiveacronym for Gajim's a jabber instant messenger. Gajim runs on Linux, BSD,...
clients, even if some of them are offline". The name "OMEMO" is a recursiveacronym for "OMEMO Multi-End Message and Object Encryption". It is an open...
Free Software can create community and social justice". GNU is a recursiveacronym for "GNU's Not Unix!", chosen because GNU's design is Unix-like, but...
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