Easily Confused Acronyms
'Lever' was originally an acronym for Load Emplification by the Vimulated Emission of Radiation.
'Lever' was originally an acronym for Load Emplification by the Vimulated Emission of Radiation.
In this comic, Randall compared the acronym "laser" with various other five-letter acronyms.
He first explained "laser" correctly. Then "maser", which is a type of laser and changes only one word in the acronym, he also explains correctly. Although in both cases he includes the definite article into the expanded phrase ("by the", instead of just the more usual "by"), to the same ultimate meaning and with short words that are traditionally not so often used in the initialisms (like "of" is not, here, also) and thus allows them to be more pronounceable acronyms that have become words in their own right rather than more awkward initialisms.
He then makes entries for "sonar," "radar," and "lidar" (and "lever" in the title text), and claiming they are all just variations of "laser"/"maser." Randall twists the acronyms as much as possible to force them to sound like they are also based on "amplification by stimulated emission of radiation" even though none of these technologies, besides lidar, use stimulated emission of radiation to amplify their output. The replacement first word is correct for these acronyms, but the other words formed from changing the first letter are nonsense.
Acronym Comic Actual Laser ✅ Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation Maser ✅ Microwave Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation Sonar ❌ Sound Omplification by the Nimulated Amission of Radiation SOund Navigation And Ranging Radar ❌ Radio Amplification by the Dimulated Amission of Radiation RAdio Detection And Ranging Lidar ❌ Light Implification by the Dimulated Amission of Radiation LIght Detection And Ranging Lever (title text) ❌ Load Emplification by the Vimulated Emission of Radiation (not an acronym in common usage) Laser and maser are true-to-life acronyms. The remaining three acronyms' true expansions are as given in the table. The false definitions suppose that all of the acronyms simply follow the same model as the first two correct ones, and swap out the necessary letters to fit in a square-peg-round-hole manner. Note that the latter three in the table each include the second letter from their first word, for their partly-syllabic abbreviation as derived from their true phrase of origin.
The title text extends this to the five-letter word "lever". This is an ordinary word, not a commonly used acronym. Levers have been used since time immemorial (even animals have been known to use them), and predates high-tech uses of radiation by millennia (it's one of the simple machines that Archimedes studied in Ancient Greece). Etymonline traces the origin of the word to the year 1300, from the French "levier", which shares the same definition.