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20-472: Autobacs was given a backronym as follows, which reflects the products the company provided prior to its renaming to Autobacs in 1980: "Seven" in the company name is said to reflect Autobacs's philosophy of searching for seventh products for customers. Autobacs was founded by Toshio Sumino in 1947 in Fukushima-ku , Osaka as Suehiro Shokai Co., Ltd. , which was reorganized into Fuji Shokai Co., Ltd.

40-429: A common theme in spy fiction . Such acronyms are similarly also common in superhero fiction and science fiction . During the 1960s trend for action-adventure spy thrillers, it was a common practice for fictional spy organizations or their nemeses to employ names that were contrived acronyms . Sometimes these acronyms' expanded meanings made sense, but most of the time they were words incongruously crammed together for

60-459: A nine-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in 1996. Officials later publicized the backronym "America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response". An example of a backronym as a mnemonic is the Apgar score , used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar . Ten years after the initial publication, the backronym APGAR was coined in

80-546: A phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, either to create a memorable name or as a fanciful explanation of a word's origin". Many fictional espionage organizations are backronyms, such as SPECTRE (special executive for counterintelligence, terrorism, revenge and extortion) from the James Bond franchise. For example, the Amber Alert missing-child program was named after Amber Hagerman ,

100-584: A result of the Lost Decade . In 2001, it was acquired by Autobacs, which renamed its car manufacturing arm ASL (Autobacs Sportscar Laboratory), thus allowing the aftermarket parts manufacturer to continue trading with its usual name. The first car planned to be produced by ASL was the Garaiya . As none were sold, there is not much known about ASL nor the Garaiya, only that it is a small sports car based on

120-750: A team formed by Autobacs and Japanese former F1 driver Aguri Suzuki . After the Super GT rule changes in 2012 that prohibited low-volume production cars from entering races, the Garaiya is no longer able to race in the series. Similarly, the Garaiya RS01 (also known as simply the RS01) was a second attempt at the ZZII , which was to be a larger and faster accompaniment to the ZZ with a variety of engines ranging from 2.0 to 3.5 litres to fit various racing regulations, as it

140-876: A year later. In 1960, Sumino opened the Fuji Drive Shop, Japan's first large-scale automotive goods store, and in 1969 he became involved in motorsport sponsorship by sponsoring a car in the Japanese Grand Prix . In 1974, the first of the Autobacs stores, the "Autobacs Higashi Osaka Store", was opened in Daitō , Osaka. The following year, Autobacs would run its first franchisee store, the "Autobacs Hakodate Nakamichi Store" in Hakodate , Hokkaidō . In 1977, Autobacs would start to develop and sell its own motor oil and tires to be sold in its own stores. At

160-440: Is probably of Romani origin but commonly believed to be a backronym of "council-housed and violent". Similarly, the distress signal SOS is often believed to be an abbreviation for "save our ship" or "save our souls" but was chosen because it has a simple and unmistakable Morse code representation – three dots, three dashes, and three dots, sent without any pauses between characters. More recent examples include

180-527: The Tommykaira ZZ , with an output of around 180 hp (130 kW) from a Nissan SR20VE engine and a weight of approximately 900 kg (2,000 lb). Customers would take part in the final development of their car's suspension to tailor it to their preferences or driving style. A modified Garaiya was fielded in the GT300 class of Super GT from 2003 through 2012 by Autobacs Racing Team Aguri ,

200-568: The US as a mnemonic learning aid: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration. Another example is the American Contract Bridge League's tools to address cheating in online bridge games. EDGAR was originally named for Edgar Kaplan, whose many contributions to the game included groundbreaking efforts to reduce illegal partnership communication. The new EDGAR tools expected to debut in early 2024 have been launched with

220-549: The backronym "everyone deserves a game above reproach". Many United States Congress bills have backronyms as their names; examples include the USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) of 2001, and the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act). Sometimes a backronym is reputed to have been used in

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240-478: The brand name Adidas , named after company founder Adolf "Adi" Dassler but falsely believed to be an acronym for "all day I dream about sport". The word Wiki is said to stand for "what I know is", but in fact is derived from the Hawaiian phrase wiki-wiki meaning 'fast'. Yahoo! , sometimes claimed to mean "yet another hierarchical officious oracle", in fact was chosen because Yahoo's founders liked

260-527: The end of the decade, Autobacs opened its 100th store, and in 1984 opened its 200th store. The company's name was officially changed from Fuji Shokai to Autobacs in March of 1980. On 11 July 2005, Autobacs entered a collaboration agreement with UK retailer Halfords . On 13 December 2005, Autobacs acquired 5% of the company (11,400,000 shares) at approximately ¥7.5 billion. In the late 1990s, specialty car manufacturer Tommykaira ran into financial difficulties as

280-568: The formation of the original word, and amounts to a false etymology or an urban legend . Acronyms were rare in the English language before the 1930s, and most etymologies of common words or phrases that suggest origin from an acronym are false. Examples include posh , an adjective describing stylish items or members of the upper class. A popular story derives the word as an acronym from "port out, starboard home", referring to 19th-century first-class cabins on ocean liners , which were shaded from

300-581: The mere purpose of obtaining a catchy acronym, traditionally a heroic sounding one for the good guys and an appropriately menacing one for the bad guys. This has become one of the most commonly parodied clichés of the spy thriller genre. They were presumably inspired by SMERSH, which appeared in the James Bond stories and sounded fictional, but really was a branch of Soviet intelligence . These acronyms are often spelled with periods/points/stops to make it clear that they stand for longer terms and are not simply

320-401: The sun on outbound voyages east (e.g. from Britain to India ) and homeward voyages west. The word's actual etymology is unknown, but more likely related to Romani påš xåra ('half-penny') or to Urdu (borrowed from Persian ) safed-pōśh ('white robes'), a term for wealthy people. Another example is the word chav , which is a derogatory term for a working-class youth. This word

340-589: The usual English words that they resemble, even though the punctuation would otherwise seem to indicate that the abbreviations should be pronounced as the names of the individual letters. Among the most popular: Various fiction invent British spy agencies with "MI numbers" other than the well-known MI5 or MI6 . Examples include MI7 in Johnny English , M.I.9 in M.I. High , and MI-13 in Marvel Comics . These agencies generally have no relation to

360-469: The word's meaning of "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth" (taken from Jonathan Swift 's book Gulliver's Travels ). The distress call " pan-pan " is commonly stated to mean "possible assistance needed", whereas it is in fact derived from the French word panne , meaning 'breakdown'. List of fictional espionage organizations Fictional espionage organizations with fancy-sounding acronyms are

380-416: The words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology . The word is a portmanteau of back and acronym . A normal acronym is a word derived from the initial letters of the words of a phrase, such as radar from "radio detection and ranging". By contrast, a backronym is "an acronym deliberately formed from

400-479: Was designed to be an FIA -spec racing car with a road version and a target weight of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). The prototype was fitted with a modified RB26DETT engine producing 542 hp (404 kW) and also featured the R34 Skyline GT-R 's ATTESA-ETS all-wheel drive system. Backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into

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