Everybody knows how acronyms work, except, apparently, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Netizens were tickled after its Games for Health Innovations Centre somehow ended up with the acronym “ALIVE”.
On 16 March, Threads user @kelvin4pres quipped: “I love you NTU, thanks for giving me an education and now a job, but that’s not how acronyms work.”
Source: @kelvin4pres on Threads
They shared a screenshot from an NTU webpage showing the Games for Health Innovations Centre, a collaboration focused on using games in healthcare.
Naturally, most people would assume the acronym is something straightforward like “GHIC”.
Instead, NTU appeared to get creative, capitalising letters at random to stylise it as “gAmes for HeaLth InnoVations CentrE (ALIVE)”.
A user later reposted the image on the r/Singapore subreddit with the title: “Acronyms are hard.”
Several commenters joked that it resembled those online sentences with random capitalisation used to signal sarcasm or mockery.
Source: Reddit
Others noticed something even stranger: based on the capitalisation of the letters H and C, the acronym doesn’t actually spell “ALIVE”, reading closer to “AHLIVCE”.
Source: Reddit
The ‘correct’ letters are capitalised in the About Us section, although NTU presents it as “gAmes for heaLthInnoVationscEntre”, sacrificing spaces in pursuit of the preferred acronym.
Source: NTU
One Redditor pointed out that randomly choosing letters to form a nice acronym isn’t exactly uncommon.
Source: Reddit
Another shared what they called a “monstrosity”: the Singapore-French programme DesCartes, derived from “intelligent modelling for DEciSion making in CriticAl uRban sysTEmS”, apparently bent on referencing French philosopher René Descartes.
Source: Reddit
The Singapore Armed Forces’ (SAF) MATADOR was also brought up, short for “Man-portable, Anti-Tank, Anti-DOoR”.
Source: The Singapore Army on Facebook
Thankfully, terrible acronyms aren’t a Singapore-exclusive phenomenon.
One United Kingdom (UK) study titled ADVANCE stood for “ArmeD serVices trAuma rehabiliatioN outComE study”.
Source: Cobseo
Was “ASTROS” really so unappealing?
Also read: Uncovering the hidden stories of the most ‘random’ street names in S’pore
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Featured image adapted from Nanyang Technological University.