I was just thinking about some crazy acronyms in English. As you probably know, an Acronym is when we abbreviate some name or phrase into just letters. Some common examples are USA, HIV or even CEO. But there are some common words that you may not know are actually acronyms. Here are a couple:
LASER - Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation SCUBA (as in scuba diving) - Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus RADAR - RAdio Detection and Ranging AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
There are some other commonly used acronyms you may never have thought about. For example: AM/PM - AM stands for ante-meridiem, and PM post-meridiem (before mid-day, after mid-day) CD-ROM - Compact Disc Read-Only Memory B.C. and A.D. (used for dates, like 1000A.D.) - B.C. stands for Before Christ, and A.D. stands for Anno Domini - in the year of our Lord.
So here is a quick test. Without using the internet, how many can you correctly guess?
1. FBI 2. NATO 3. DVD 4. UN 5. HIV 6. UPS 7. CEO 8. OPEC 9. EU 10. GTO
1.the Federal Bureau of Investigation
2.the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
3.Degital Video Disc
4.the United Nations
5.? Immune? Virus
6.?
7.Chief Executive Officer
8.the Oil? Producing? Economy? Cooperation?
9.the European? Union
10.Great Teacher Onizuka なんちゃって…
5.Human Immunodecficiency Virus
6.United Percel Service
8.Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
10. Gran Turismo Omologato ( I don't know what it means)
You are right, GTO stands for Gran Turismo Omologato, which is an italian term used for racing. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and even Mitsubishi each have their own verson of a GTO - which basically means a car that is made for racing, but is also (usually) used for normal street driving. That one is really difficult - I think Nobuko used a dictionary!