I would say SNAFU & FUBAR are more famous because SOS has been replaced with MAYDAY.
Technically it is an acronym. Just like the ones being identified on this platform, it comprised of letters created by a line of on/off signals, or as we now call them, bits.
Much maritime communication used short-form since originally it was by lines of lags or by arm signals - both time and energy consuming.
OK. Lesson over, get back to the frivolities!
I once drove a peg into a wasps nest which was underground in an old rabbit burrow. It was 4 hours before we could retrieve the instrument,
@dave-drahn
Don't forget the most famous acronym ever.
SOS?ÿ
?ÿ
Actually SOS is not an acronym. It's origins are in the maritime use of Morse Code around the turn of the 19th/20th Centuries. ...---...
?ÿ???? ?ÿ
Unless skeeter was talking about what was served at the mess hall.
What rule? The original post didn't limit to 3.
Yes that's true. It's a general convention in much of the big wide world that three letters trip well off the tongue and hence are easy to remember. (Such as USA rather than USOA). You can have as many as you wish as long as you don't mind a confused audience.
One of mine was LSMFT.?ÿ That was a key slogan meaning Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco which refers to Lucky Strike cigarettes.?ÿ I don't buy them so I have no idea if that brand still exists.
I knew a surveyor who would label the files he gave the researcher lady he hired as L.S.M.F.T. in big bold felt marker letters.?ÿ I asked her one day if she knew what that stood for.?ÿ She didn't, but she knew she was supposed to get maps, deeds, ties, and a bench mark.?ÿ I told her to ask him what it stood for, because I knew it was for a "Lot Survey and a M-----F-----Topo".
Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco!
Worked with a guy that was standing just right next to me with his pant leg open over the opening of a ground nest of yellow jackets and on my first strike of a rebar, they came boiling out of the ground and straight up his pant leg. He managed to remove his pants while in a full sprint, which was quite entertaining and I would have thought quite impossible.
?ÿ
KKOW is a Country Music station.
Well, holy cow that Pittsburg, KS radio station used to be KOAM. According to its Wiki article:
By the end of the 1970s, KOAM adopted a country music format.
It was sold to American Media Investments on May 11, 1981 . Due to the ownership split of KOAM AM-FM from KOAM-TV, its callsign changed from KOAM to KKOW on May 18, 1981.
Those oddball call letters were because the common spelling was already taken.
My hometown of Alliance, NE was known as the, "Cattle Capitol of Nebraska" when I was a little shaver in the 1950s. On the AM dial at 1400 was KCOW (it went on the air at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 15, 1949). It was awfully fond of playing old, classic country western music back in those days. Now it plays golden oldies.
Acronyms v. initialisms
A pet peeve of mine, and a discussion at the saloon from time to time (BION Believe it or not).
The following is from Grammerbook.com, but the "definitions" are similar in MOST dictionaries.?ÿ
Initialisms and acronyms are two types of abbreviations that are used to shorten phrases.
Initialisms are abbreviations that are pronounced one letter at a time.
Examples:
?? FBI
?? HTML
?? IBM
?? DVD
?? BTW (by the way)
Note that most people would simply call these abbreviations, which is fine. Some would call them acronyms, which sticklers would challenge.
Acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced as words.
Examples:
?? NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
?? AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
?? OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)
?? SPA (Society of Professional Accountants)
?? WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant)
?? ASAP (as soon as possible)
?? Radar (radio detecting and ranging)
?? Scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus)
Don't know what any of those are but there sure looks like there's a lot of "F" words in 'em. ?????ÿ
The reason for KOAM was the location so close to the corners of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.?ÿ The TV station came on the air in 1953, I believe.
Then there is Elon Musk's rocket and space ship the BFR and BFS. They haven't said what the letters stand for but they are huge and I think we all know the rest.
I mentioned some while ago that while doing an urban topo, a drone surveyor bowled up in his ute and leapt out and asked what GEOID we were using. What threw me more than the fact that we weren't using any geoid, was that he pronounced it "gee oh eye dee" (with an American twang).
@skeeter1996 Slipping Out Silently.?ÿ I use that one all the time!
Anything with MF in it sounds great and piques interest.
