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recursive acronym
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recursive acronym: /n./ A hackish (and especially MIT)
tradition is to choose acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously
to themselves or to other acronyms/abbreviations. The classic
examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS")
and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a
Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and
GNU (q.v., sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" -- and a
company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU
Support". See also mung, EMACS.
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