Acronym it. This has become such a problem that it is even evaluated at the level of medical academies such as the American Academy of Dermatology. Acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices, for example in physics the colors of the visible spectrum are said to be "ROY G. BIV" ("red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet"). They are also used as mental checklists, for example in aviation: "GUMPS", which is "Gas-Undercarriage-Mixture-Propeller-Seatbelts". Other examples of mnemonic acronyms are "CAN SLIM", and "PAVPANIC" as well as "PEMDAS". It is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology, called a "folk etymology", for a
Backronym citation in print is as "bacronym" in the November 1983 edition of the "Washington Post" monthly neologism contest. The newspaper quoted winning reader Meredith G. Williams of Potomac, Maryland, defining it as the "same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters". Backronyms can be constructed for educational purposes, for example to form mnemonics. An example of such a mnemonic is the Apgar score, used to assess the health of newborn babies. The rating system was devised by and named after Virginia Apgar, but ten years after the initial publication, the backronym "APGAR" was coined