Guest Hootenanny, just for starters, check a few of the following, and continue searching through Sheidlower, Morris, Quinion, or any other credible etymological source:As to the non-existence of acronyms prior to WWII, it's a well-known, well-documented principle of etymology that acronyms (i.e. initializations pronounced as words, as POSH would be, or like "AIDS" etc.) are so rare as to be just about non-existent prior to 1940; in fact some etymologists point to SNAFU as the original of the species, but maybe not. It has nothing to do with when "the empire" fell apart.