MiG - Whats in a name?

[TinyTim]

Originally Posted by Romanator21

"M and G" would sound like "em ee geh"

But MiG, even if an abbreviation where i stands for "and" is easily pronounced (in russian) as a single word. BMW isn't. How do you spell "PIRATE" when discussing Eurofighter Typhoon's IRST? It's an abbreviation standing for "Passive Infra-Red Airborne Track Equipment". Pee-Eye-Uhr-Ey-Tee-Ee?

Whenever an abbreviation is easily spelled, it will stick as a word, and consequently many'd even be composed that way in the first place - backronyms.