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Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:The Joy of Lex
Notice:A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:THEBAY::SYSTEM
Created:Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1192
Total number of notes:42769

1155.0. "Increnyms and Decrenyms" by wook.mso.dec.com::mold.ogo.dec.com::lee (Wook like book with a W) Thu Sep 21 1995 03:50

Increnyms and Decrenyms are sets of acronyms where each corresponding pair 
of letters differ by a set number of places in the alphabet. (I know this 
because I just coined the terms, as far as I know.)

The most famous ones are probably the computer-related ones. (Actually, 
they're the only ones I could think of.)

IBM - 1 = HAL (order 1, length 3 decrenym)
VMS + 1 = WNT (order 1, length 3 increnym)

As you can see, increnyms and decrenyms occur in pairs. The question is 
this: Has anyone come across any higher order pairs? Any longer ones?

I guess if you played with transposition cyphers a lot, you might have 
stumbled over a few of these. I haven't, so I'm curious.

Wook
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
1155.1SMURF::BINDERNight's candles are burnt out.Thu Sep 21 1995 11:106
    I haven't any higher-order or longer ones, but the name OZ is an
    increnym from NY, the state in which L. Frank Baum lived when he wrote
    _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz._  Although it is not known with certainty
    whether this was the origin of the name of his fantastical land, it
    seems plausible - and, actually, more so than the tale that Baum had a
    two-drawer filing cabinet with the drawers labeled A-N and O-Z.
1155.2AUSSIE::WHORLOWMy Cow is dead!Thu Sep 21 1995 19:4514
    G'day,
     good to see that we in Oz are one up on those in NY...
    
     I always (well for 8+ years anyway) thought a decrenym was an acronym
    used inside digital...
    
    
    'cos even FLAs come down to a TLA in the end
    
    
    and end -> foe.. the end is teh enemy of many
    
    dj
    
1155.3JRDV04::DIAMONDsegmentation fault (california dumped)Thu Sep 21 1995 21:562
    Decrenym is the most common work done in Digital's personnel department,
    though Desperado recently reported a rare increnym.