terminology - Is there a term for words that are sounded out initialisms?


The words "okay" and "emcee" seem to both be somewhat widely accepted (at least, I can find both in several dictionaries). But it seems to be agreed that these are simply sounded-out spellings of the initialisms "O.K." and "M.C." respectively.


Are there any other words like this, and is there a general term for them?



Answer



There doesn't seem to be an official term for words made by spelling out the name sounds of an initialism's letters. Twelve years ago today, on 2000-01-06, Lee Daniel Quinn suggested calling this type of word a vocologue, but his attempted neologism doesn't seem to have caught on.


I'd like to see a happier fate for wim 9's acronomatopoeia, suggested in the comments above. I like the cleverness of the portmanteau formation, and it can be reasonably-well understood to mean a word formed by the sounds of an initialism's letter names.


I was able to find only the following 9 common examples of acronomatopoeia:



  • Teevee = TV (Television)

  • Emcee= MC (Master of ceremonies)

  • Deejay= DJ (Disk Jockey)

  • Veejay= VJ (video jockey)

  • Jaycee= JC (Junior Chamber of Commerce.)

  • Jayvee= JV (Junior Varsity)

  • Okay = OK (Oll Korrect or Old Kinderhok)

  • Kayo= KO (Knock Out)

  • Arby's = RB's (Raffel Brothers)


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