An acronym is a phrase which is commonly shortened for colloquial use. Acronyms are very common on the Internet, as users look for shortcuts wherever they can find them. We thought we would take a look at the most common acronyms on the Web.
First, we ran numbers for how many Lycos users search for both an acronym and the original phrase it stands for in the same 12-hour period. This demonstrates which acronyms are primarily used as shortcuts for a commonly used longer phrase.
1) IRS INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
2) HGH HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE
3) UPS UNITED PARCEL SERVICE
4) WWF WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
5) DBZ DRAGONBALL Z
6) TSE TORONTO STOCK EXCHANGE
7) HP HEWLETT PACKARD
8) POS POINT OF SALE
9) AOL AMERICA ONLINE
10) MS MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
11) ISP INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
12) AAA AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE
ASSOCIATION
13) ASP APPLICATION SERVICE PROVIDER
14) KKK KU KLUX KLAN
15) BET BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION
16) ICP INSANE CLOWN POSSE
17) ADD ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
18) AMA AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
19) NYU NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
20) MLS MULTIPLE LISTING SERVICE
What do you know? Three of the top five are denizens of the Lycos 50. Now here is the list of the most searched acronyms overall. If an acronym is higher here than it was above, that means the acronym is much better known than the expanded phrase.
1) AOL AMERICA ONLINE
2) SMS SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE
3) DVD DIGITAL VIDEO DISC
4) CD COMPACT DISC
5) WWF WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION
6) BMW BAVARIAN MOTOR WORKS
7) FTP FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL
8) DSL DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE
9) CNN CABLE NEWS NETWORK
10) ATT AMERICAN TELEPHONE
AND TELEGRAPH
11) HTML HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE
12) UPS UNITED PARCEL SERVICE
13) IRS INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
14) DBZ DRAGONBALL Z
15) NBA NATIONAL BASKETBALL
ASSOCIATION
16) BBC BRITISH BROADCASTING AGENCY
17) GPS GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM
18) HP HEWLETT PACKARD
19) AAA AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE
ASSOCIATION
20) ISP INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
A lot of technology on this list, which demonstrates how much techies love their acronyms. SMS, FTP, HTML, DSL, and ISP (not to mention AOL) are all commonly-searched computer terms.
Furthermore, I'll bet you had no idea that BMW stood for Bavarian Motor Works. Thanks to my buddy Fabian Tillier for filling us in on that little-known fact.
Since this data takes a bit of time to process, the numbers are from two weeks ago (the week ending May 19, 2001). The only major difference between the two weeks would be that the NBA was more popular last week (after all, it moved up from #38 to #29 on the Lycos 50).
TOMORROW: The next J. Lo?
