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129-1117: The research of the Afrika-Studiecentrum Leiden covers four themes: politics and security, society, religion and culture, and economics and history. Various projects study international relations of African countries with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf , economic development and entrepreneurship, and processes in African politics and legislation. Other areas of research are language use in social movements in Africa, new developments in healthcare through telecommunications and e-health (electronic health), natural conservation and African historiography . The Afrika-Studiecentrum publishes scientific articles and various books about its research, in-house or in collaboration with publishers such as Brill , including

258-428: A numeronym . For example, "i18n" abbreviates " internationalization ", a computer-science term for adapting software for worldwide use; the "18" represents the 18 letters that come between the first and the last in "internationalization". Similarly, "localization" can be abbreviated "l10n"; " multilingualization " "m17n"; and " accessibility " "a11y". In addition to the use of a specific number replacing that many letters,

387-641: A single word ("television" or "transvestite", for instance), and is in general spelled without punctuation (except in the plural). Although "PS" stands for the single English word " postscript " or the Latin postscriptum , it is often spelled with periods ("P.S.") as if parsed as Latin post scriptum instead. The slash ('/', or solidus ) is sometimes used to separate the letters in an acronym, as in "N/A" ("not applicable, not available") and "c/o" ("care of"). Inconveniently long words used frequently in related contexts can be represented according to their letter count as

516-498: A 1940 translation of a novel by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger . It is an unsettled question in English lexicography and style guides whether it is legitimate to use the word acronym to describe forms that use initials but are not pronounced as a word. While there is plenty of evidence that acronym is used widely in this way, some sources do not acknowledge this usage, reserving

645-546: A 2010 report from Goldman Sachs, China might surpass the United States in equity market capitalization terms by 2030 and become the single largest equity market in the world. By 2020, America's GDP might be only slightly larger than China's GDP . Together, the four BRICs may account for 41% of the world's market capitalization by 2030, the report said. By 2015, Goldman Sachs quietly closed down its BRIC fund after lost 88 percent of its asset value since 2010, instead channeling

774-563: A Future with BRICs for European publisher Springer Verlag that examines the growth of the BRICs region and its effect on global sourcing. Brazilian lawyer and author Adler Martins has published a paper called "Contratos Internacionais entre os países do BRIC" (International Agreements Among BRIC countries) which highlights the international conventions ratified by the BRIC countries, which allow them to maintain trade and investment activities safely within

903-402: A decade later India would begin to dominate the world economy. However, it was noted that despite the balance of future growth swinging so decisively towards the BRIC economies, the average level of individuals in the more advanced economies will continue to far outstrip the BRIC economic average for the foreseeable future. The report also highlights India's inefficient energy consumption at

1032-404: A decade. This predicted a massive rise in the size of the middle class in these nations. The report also includes calculations that in 2025, the number of people in BRIC nations earning over $ 15,000 would reach over 200 million people. This indicates that a huge pickup in demand will not be restricted to basic goods but impact higher-priced goods as well. According to the report, first China and then

1161-617: A different meaning. Medical literature has been struggling to control the proliferation of acronyms, including efforts by the American Academy of Dermatology. Acronyms are often taught as mnemonic devices: for example the colors of the rainbow are ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). They are also used as mental checklists: in aviation GUMPS stands for gas-undercarriage-mixture-propeller-seat belts. Other mnemonic acronyms include CAN SLIM in finance, PAVPANIC in English grammar, and PEMDAS in mathematics. It

1290-404: A formal trading association which this move signifies. The BRIC term is also used by companies who refer to the four named countries as key to their emerging markets strategies. By comparison, the reduced acronym IC would not be attractive, although the term " Chindia " is often used. BRIC's study specifically focuses on large countries, not necessarily the wealthiest or the most productive and

1419-760: A medial decimal point . Particularly in British and Commonwealth English , all such punctuation marking acronyms and other capitalized abbreviations is now uncommon and considered either unnecessary or incorrect. The presence of all-capital letters is now thought sufficient to indicate the nature of the UK , the EU , and the UN . Forms such as the U.S.A. for "the United States of America " are now considered to indicate American or North American English . Even within those dialects, such punctuation

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1548-649: A multitude of bilateral or even quadrilateral agreements. Evidence of agreements of this type are abundant and are available on the foreign ministry websites of each of the four countries. Trilateral agreements and frameworks made among the BRICs include the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (member states include Russia and China, observers include India) and the IBSA Trilateral Forum , which unites Brazil, India, and South Africa in annual dialogues. The Russia-India-China (RIC) strategic triangle

1677-841: A network of African Studies Centres in Europe that was set up in 1991 to build upon the resources and research potential available within Africanist institutions in Europe. As of 1 January 2016, the African Studies Centre is a part of Leiden University. On 1 April 2021, Marleen Dekker became the new director of the ASC replacing Jan Bart Gewald who had been director since 2017. The centre publishes extensively, sometimes in cooperation with publishers such as Brill Publishers in Leiden. ASC publications include: Many Dutch Africanists are or have been connected to

1806-407: A period when the letters are pronounced individually, as in " K.G.B. ", but not when pronounced as a word, as in " NATO ". The logic of this style is that the pronunciation is reflected graphically by the punctuation scheme. When a multiple-letter abbreviation is formed from a single word, periods are in general not used, although they may be common in informal usage. "TV", for example, may stand for

1935-405: A phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation . For some, an initialism or alphabetism , connotes this general meaning, and an acronym is a subset with a narrower definition: an initialism pronounced as a word rather than as

2064-429: A political and economic organization largely based on such grouping. The grouping has been rendered as " the BRICs ", "the BRIC countries ", "the BRIC economies ", or alternatively as the " Big Four ". The term was first coined by economist Jim O'Neill and later championed by his employer Goldman Sachs in 2001. O'Neill identified the four countries as emerging markets and rising economic powers which were at

2193-479: A political club" and that the organisation appeared to exist just as "a club that the US is not a part of." In 2001, Jim O'Neill , a global economist at Goldman Sachs at the time, proposed that the economic potential of Brazil , Russia , India and China is such that they could become among the most dominant economies by 2050. At the time, these countries encompassed over 25% of the world's land coverage and 40% of

2322-433: A reflection of where economic power and influence is starting to move." The International Monetary Fund estimated emerging markets might expand 6.5 percent in 2011, more than double the 2.5 percent rate for developed countries. BRIC's takeover made record by 22 percent of global deals or increase by 74 percent in one year and more than quadrupled in the last five years. According to The World Bank Doing Business report 2019

2451-468: A researcher at ASC. In the eighties, former director-Stephen Ellis was chief editor of Africa Confidential . Board members in the first years were prof.mr. Frederik Mari baron van Asbeck, mr. Karel Paul van der Mandele en mr. Petrus Johannes Idenburg. BRIC BRIC is a term describing the foreign investment strategies grouping acronym that stands for Brazil , Russia , India , and China . The separate BRICS organisation would go on to become

2580-480: A sequence of letters. In this sense, NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / is an acronym but USA / j uː ɛ s ˈ eɪ / is not. The broader sense of acronym , ignoring pronunciation, is its original meaning and in common use. Dictionary and style-guide editors dispute whether the term acronym can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced as words, and they do not agree on acronym spacing , casing , and punctuation . The phrase that

2709-429: A similar stage of newly advanced economic development. Goldman Sachs, of which O'Neill was the head of global economics research, would continue reporting and investing in their BRIC fund until 2015. In a 2023 retrospective article, O'Neill commented that after the term's initial proposal, it gained an outsized popularilty in the 2000s and 2010s to explain the economic conditions of the four countries. He also conceded that

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2838-436: A single word, such as NATO (as distinct from B-B-C )" but adds later "In everyday use, acronym is often applied to abbreviations that are technically initialisms, since they are pronounced as separate letters." The Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges the complexity ("Furthermore, an acronym and initialism are occasionally combined (JPEG), and the line between initialism and acronym is not always clear") but still defines

2967-448: A special report on Brazil, expressed the following view: "In some ways, Brazil is the steadiest of the BRICs. Unlike China and Russia, it is a full-blooded democracy; unlike India, it has no serious disputes with its neighbors. It is the only BRIC without a nuclear bomb". The Heritage Foundation 's Indices of Economic Freedom , which measures factors such as protection of property rights and free trade ranks Brazil "moderately free" above

3096-497: A twentieth-century phenomenon. Linguist David Wilton in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends claims that "forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth- (and now twenty-first-) century phenomenon. There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is colinderies or colinda , an acronym for

3225-496: A way of extracting political concessions from the United States, such as the proposed nuclear cooperation with India. The BRIC thesis recognizes that Brazil , Russia , India and China have changed their political systems to embrace global capitalism . Goldman Sachs predicts that China and India, respectively, will become the dominant global suppliers of manufactured goods and services , while Brazil and Russia will become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. Of

3354-523: A web service, Connecting-Africa , with links to more than 94,000 online articles about Africa. The library also has a collection of archival material including archives of African government publications and a number of personal archives. The centre was founded on 12 August 1947 as the academic division of an Afrika Instituut, which initially also had an economic section, later spun off as the Netherlands-African Business Council . Over

3483-471: A word, an abbreviation is not an acronym." In contrast, some style guides do support it, whether explicitly or implicitly. The 1994 edition of Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage defends the usage on the basis of a claim that dictionaries do not make a distinction. The BuzzFeed style guide describes CBS and PBS as "acronyms ending in S". Acronymy, like retronymy , is a linguistic process that has existed throughout history but for which there

3612-639: A word. American English dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster , Dictionary.com's Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary as well as the British Oxford English Dictionary and the Australian Macquarie Dictionary all include a sense in their entries for acronym equating it with initialism , although The American Heritage Dictionary criticizes it with

3741-529: Is "Another 'BRIC' in Global Wall", suggesting that it stands out from the Next Eleven economies with its BRIC-like growth rate, despite its Human Development Index being higher than some of the world's most advanced economies, including France , United Kingdom , Austria , Denmark , Finland and Belgium . South Korean workers are the wealthiest among major Asian countries, with a higher income than Japan and

3870-426: Is a "gateway" to Southern Africa and Africa in general as the most developed African country. China is South Africa's largest trading partner, and India wants to increase commercial ties with Africa. South Africa is also Africa's largest economy, but as number 31 in global GDP economies it is far behind its new partners. Jim O'Neill expressed surprise when South Africa joined BRIC since South Africa's economy

3999-439: Is a BRIC miracle it's first and foremost a Chinese one". The "growth gap" between China and other large emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia and India can be attributed to a large extent to China's early focus on ambitious infrastructure projects: while China invested roughly 9% of its GDP on infrastructure in the 1990s and 2000s, most emerging economies invested only 2% to 5% of their GDP. This considerable spending gap allowed

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4128-598: Is a quarter of the size of Russia's (the least economically powerful BRIC nation). He believed that the potential was there but did not anticipate inclusion of South Africa at this stage. Martyn Davies, a South African emerging markets expert, argued that the decision to invite South Africa made little commercial sense but was politically astute given China's attempts to establish a foothold in Africa. Further, South Africa's inclusion in BRICS may translate to greater South African support for China in global fora. He has great belief that

4257-488: Is a question about how to pluralize acronyms. Often a writer will add an 's' following an apostrophe, as in "PC's". However, Kate L. Turabian 's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations , writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and "URLs" but "Ph.D.'s". The style guides of

4386-707: Is becoming increasingly uncommon. Some style guides , such as that of the BBC , no longer require punctuation to show ellipsis ; some even proscribe it. Larry Trask , American author of The Penguin Guide to Punctuation , states categorically that, in British English , "this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete." Nevertheless, some influential style guides , many of them American , still require periods in certain instances. For example, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends following each segment with

4515-411: Is common for grammatical contractions (e.g. don't , y'all , and ain't ) and for contractions marking unusual pronunciations (e.g. a'ight , cap'n , and fo'c'sle for "all right", "captain", and "forecastle"). By the early twentieth century, it was standard to use a full stop/period/point , especially in the cases of initialisms and acronyms. Previously, especially for Latin abbreviations , this

4644-631: Is especially important for paper media, where no search utility is available to find the first use.) It also gives students a convenient review list to memorize the important acronyms introduced in a textbook chapter. Expansion at first use and abbreviation keys originated in the print era, but they are equally useful for electronic text . While acronyms provide convenience and succinctness for specialists, they often degenerate into confusing jargon . This may be intentional, to exclude readers without domain-specific knowledge. New acronyms may also confuse when they coincide with an already existing acronym having

4773-468: Is expected to have a higher GDP per capita than all but three European countries by 2050, this newfound local wealth also contributes to the nation's economy by creating a large domestic consumer market which in turn creates more jobs. South Korea is one of the world's most highly developed countries and including it with developing countries like the BRICs is not deemed correct. However, commentators such as William Pesek from Bloomberg argue that Korea

4902-464: Is generally said as two letters, but IPsec for Internet Protocol Security is usually pronounced as / ˌ aɪ ˈ p iː s ɛ k / or / ˈ ɪ p s ɛ k / , along with variant capitalization like "IPSEC" and "Ipsec". Pronunciation may even vary within a single speaker's vocabulary, depending on narrow contexts. As an example, the database programming language SQL is usually said as three letters, but in reference to Microsoft's implementation

5031-431: Is happening in the country, which the report predicts would lead to the prosperity of the growing middle class . Demographically, India had 10 of the 30 fastest-growing urban areas in the world at the time. Based on trends at the time, an estimated 700 million Indians will move to cities by 2050. Such a demographic change would have significant implications for demand for urban infrastructure, real estate, and services. In

5160-558: Is in a league of its own compared to the other BRIC countries. As David Rothkopf wrote in Foreign Policy , "Without China, the BRICs are just the BRI, a bland, soft cheese that is primarily known for the whine [sic] that goes with it. China is the muscle of the group and the Chinese know it. They have effective veto power over any BRIC initiatives because without them, who cares really? They are

5289-431: Is larger than that of the three other BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, and India) combined. Moreover, China's exports and its official foreign-exchange reserves are more than twice as large as those of the other BRICs combined. In that perspective, some pension investment experts have argued that "China alone accounts for more than 70% of the combined GDP growth generated by the BRIC countries [from 1999 to 2010]: if there

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5418-479: Is no South Africa of BRIC S in the above table. In 2030, the sole country from Africa is Nigeria and the US is still number one, but China almost overtakes the US. The following three tables are lists of economies by incremental GDP from 2006 to 2050 by Goldman Sachs . They illustrate that the BRICs and N11 nations are replacing G7 nations as the main contributors to the world's economic growth. From 2020 to 2050, nine of

5547-459: Is not uncommon for acronyms to be cited in a kind of false etymology , called a folk etymology , for a word. Such etymologies persist in popular culture but have no factual basis in historical linguistics , and are examples of language-related urban legends . For example, " cop " is commonly cited as being derived, it is presumed, from "constable on patrol", and " posh " from " port outward, starboard home ". With some of these specious expansions,

5676-415: Is traditionally pronounced like the word sequel . In writing for a broad audience, the words of an acronym are typically written out in full at its first occurrence within a given text. Expansion At First Use (EAFU) benefits readers unfamiliar with the acronym. Another text aid is an abbreviation key which lists and expands all acronyms used, a reference for readers who skipped past the first use. (This

5805-477: Is used to refer to the bonds emitted by these emerging markets governments. O'Neill would later coin several other terms for groupings of emerging economies at various stages. First, the term "The Next Eleven" referred to Bangladesh , Egypt , Indonesia , Iran , Mexico , Nigeria , Pakistan , the Philippines , South Korea , Turkey , and Vietnam , arguing they would be among the world's largest economies in

5934-818: The Africa Yearbook and the series African Dynamics , the African Studies Collection , and the Africa Study Center Series . The topics range from international migration to social aspects of football in Africa. Most books also appear in an electronic (online) version. The Afrika-Studiecentrum annually awards a prize for the best Master's thesis in the field. The centre's library consists of some 100,000 books and about 2,000 journals (including electronic journals), government reports, brochures, African newspapers and about 2,500 documentaries and feature films on video and DVD. The centre has also developed

6063-522: The African Studies Centre , like the poet Vernie February, de sociologist and later anti- apartheidsactivist Klaas de Jonge , de bestuursambtenaar Lucien Adam, the antropologist Bonno Thoden van Velzen , de sociologist Robert Buijtenhuijs, professor Emile van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal , the antropologist Wouter van Beek, and historica, researcher and author Anne-Lot Hoek. Between 1959 en 1962 was Kofi Abrefa Busia , de later prime minister of Ghana ,

6192-581: The Bovespa , has gone from approximately 9,000 in September 2002 to over 70,000 in May 2008. Government policies have favored investment (lowering interest rates), retiring foreign debt and expanding growth, and a reformulation of the tax system is being voted in the congress. The British author and researcher Mark Kobayashi-Hillary wrote a book in 2007, along with contributors Nandan Nilekani and Shiv Nada , titled Building

6321-507: The Colonial and Indian Exposition held in London in that year." However, although acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the twentieth century (as Wilton points out), the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly understood (and evidently not novel) in an Edgar Allan Poe story of the 1830s, " How to Write a Blackwood Article ", which includes

6450-481: The Czech Republic , Slovakia , Hungary , Bulgaria , and several others were able to continually sustain high economic growth rates and do not experience some of the problems that Russia experiences or experience them to a lesser extent. In terms of GDP per capita in 2008, Brazil ranked 64th, Russia 42nd, India 113th, and China 89th. By comparison, South Korea ranked 24th and Singapore 3rd. Brazil's stock market,

6579-612: The Modern Language Association and American Psychological Association prohibit apostrophes from being used to pluralize acronyms regardless of periods (so "compact discs" would be "CDs" or "C.D.s"), whereas The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage requires an apostrophe when pluralizing all abbreviations regardless of periods (preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's"). Possessive plurals that also include apostrophes for mere pluralization and periods appear especially complex: for example, "the C.D.'s' labels" (the labels of

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6708-533: The Restoration witticism arranging the names of some members of Charles II 's Committee for Foreign Affairs to produce the "CABAL" ministry . OK , a term of disputed origin, dates back at least to the early nineteenth century and is now used around the world. Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms; some well-known examples from

6837-572: The United States by 2040 to become the world's wealthiest major economy. While measuring the South Korean economy by nominal GDP is inaccurate as the South Korean won is artificially kept low to boost exports , the IMF predicted South Korea's nominal GDP and GDP per capita will surpass Spain in 2015. Economists from other investment firms argue that even when measured by nominal GDP per capita , South Korea will achieve over $ 145,000 in 2040, surpassing

6966-421: The "S" in "BRICS" could be replaced eventually by SADC . African credentials are important geopolitically, giving BRICS a four-continent breadth, influence and trade opportunities. South Africa's addition is a deft political move that further enhances BRICS' power and status. In the original essay that coined the term, Goldman Sachs did not argue that the BRICs would organize themselves into an economic bloc, or

7095-480: The "belief" that the etymology is acronymic has clearly been tongue-in-cheek among many citers, as with "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden" for " golf ", although many other (more credulous ) people have uncritically taken it for fact. Taboo words in particular commonly have such false etymologies: " shit " from "ship/store high in transit" or "special high-intensity training" and " fuck " from "for unlawful carnal knowledge", or "fornication under consent/command of

7224-463: The 160-character SMS limit, and to save time, acronyms such as "GF" ("girlfriend"), "LOL" ("laughing out loud"), and "DL" ("download" or "down low") have become popular. Some prescriptivists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity, or as failure to use "pure" or "proper" English. Others point out that languages have always continually changed , and argue that acronyms should be embraced as inevitable, or as innovation that adapts

7353-461: The 18 letters between the initial "i" and the final "n"). Authors of expository writing will sometimes capitalize or otherwise distinctively format the initials of the expansion for pedagogical emphasis (for example, writing: "the onset of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)" or "the onset of c ongestive h eart f ailure (CHF)"). Capitalization like this, however, conflicts with the convention of English orthography, which generally reserves capitals in

7482-404: The 1990s. Kofi Abrefa Busia , who later became prime minister of Ghana (1969-1972), worked at the African Studies Centre between 1959 and 1962. Former director Stephen Ellis was editor in chief of Africa Confidential . Petrus Johannes Idenburg , lector of African constitutional law at Leiden University, was one of the founders of the centre. The centre was one of the founders of AEGIS ,

7611-592: The 21st century. O'Neill next used the term MIKT for Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey. MINT was another acronym coined by O'Neill standing for Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey. Primarily, along with the BRICs, Goldman Sachs argues that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico and China is such that they may become (with the United States) the six most dominant economies by 2050. Due to Mexico's rapidly advancing infrastructure, increasing middle class and rapidly declining poverty rates it

7740-646: The BRIC economies introduced a total of 21 reforms, with getting electricity and trading across borders the most common areas of improvement. Various sources refer to a purported "original" BRIC agreement that predates the Goldman Sachs thesis. Some of these sources claim that President Vladimir Putin of Russia was the driving force behind this original cooperative coalition of developing BRIC countries. However, thus far, no text has been made public of any formal agreement to which all four BRIC states are signatories. This does not mean, however, that they have not reached

7869-475: The BRIC economies, these gains have largely been the result of the strength of emerging markets generally, and that strength comes through having BRICs and CEMENT. Based on IMF's World Economic Outlook Database, published in October 2016, the top economies in 2021 (by projected nominal gross domestic product (GDP)) are projected to be, in order, China, United States, India, Japan, Germany, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil,

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7998-421: The BRICS organisation, was held between the leaders of the four countries, with later summits involving South Africa beginning in 2010 . O'Neill commented on the 2010 summit by drawing a distinction between his BRIC term and the BRICS organisation, arguing that South Africa was too small as an economy to join the BRIC ranks. In further comments in 2023, O'Neill stressed that he "never encouraged them to develop

8127-798: The Brazilian economy was worth $ 2.09 trillion while UK economy was worth $ 2.25 trillion. The significant increases were attributed to a Brazilian economic boom in high food and oil prices. Since the beginning of the Great Recession , in Q3 2013 the economy of Brazil contracted by 0.5 percent compared with the previous quarter, being the first contraction since Q1 2009. In June 2012, following Standard & Poor's (S&P) report that India's growth outlook could deteriorate if policymaking and governance did not improve, Fitch Ratings cut its credit outlook for India from stable to negative while maintaining its BBB− rating,

8256-461: The British press may render it "Nato"), but uses lower case in " Unicef " (from "United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund") because it is more than four letters, and to style it in caps might look ungainly (flirting with the appearance of "shouting capitals"). While abbreviations typically exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to"), this is not always

8385-463: The Chinese economy to grow at near-optimal conditions while many South American and South Asian economies suffered from various development bottlenecks (poor transportation, aging power grids, mediocre schools). In 2024, Jim O'Neill himself, when referring to the BRICS organisation , said that "without the Chinese presence, I don't think there would be much real importance, at all, to the BRICS group" due to

8514-545: The Great Recession and impact of COVID-19 pandemic . In late 2010, China surpassed Japan's GDP for the first time, with China's GDP standing at $ 5.88 trillion compared to Japan's $ 5.47 trillion. China thus became the world's second-largest economy after the United States. For the year 2013, for the first time China surpassed $ 4 trillion in world trade and become the world's largest trading country, consisting of $ 2.21 trillion in exports and $ 1.95 trillion in imports. While

8643-543: The North combined with advanced technology, infrastructure and large amount of capital in the South, as well as Korea's strategic location connecting three economic powers, would likely create an economy larger than the bulk of the G7. A reunited Korea could occur sometime before 2050 according to some outside observers. Acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of

8772-425: The U.K., and France. Mexico and South Korea are currently the world's 13th and 15th largest by nominal GDP just behind the BRIC and G7 economies. Both are experiencing rapid GDP growth of 5% every year, a figure comparable to Brazil from the original BRICs. Jim O'Neill , creator of the economic thesis, stated that in 2001 when the paper was created, it did not consider Mexico, but today it has been included because

8901-564: The U.S. Navy, is "COMCRUDESPAC", which stands for "commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific"; it is also seen as "ComCruDesPac". Inventors are encouraged to anticipate the formation of acronyms by making new terms "YABA-compatible" ("yet another bloody acronym"), meaning the term's acronym can be pronounced and is not an offensive word: "When choosing a new name, be sure it is 'YABA-compatible'." Acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with short message service (SMS), and instant messenger (IM). To fit messages into

9030-492: The United States are among the " alphabet agencies " (jokingly referred to as " alphabet soup ") created under the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt (himself known as "FDR"). Business and industry also coin acronyms prolifically. The rapid advance of science and technology also drives the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more pronounceable names. One representative example, from

9159-573: The United States for 11 months of 2013 world trade figure totaling $ 3.5 trillion and seems cannot beat China. China's world trade balance in 2013 had a surplus of almost $ 260 billion, a 12.8% increased from the prior year. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research , based on International Monetary Fund figures, in 2012 Brazil became the sixth-largest economy in the world by overtaking United Kingdom with $ 2.52 trillion and $ 2.48 trillion, respectively. Comparatively in 2010,

9288-580: The United States, suggesting that wealth is more important than size for bond investors, stating that Korea's credit rating will be rated AAA sooner than 2050. In September 2009, Goldman Sachs published its 188th Global Economics Paper named "A United Korea?" which highlighted in detail the potential economic power of a United Korea , which would surpass all current G7 countries except the United States and Japan within 30–40 years of reunification, estimating GDP to surpass $ 6 trillion by 2050. The young, skilled labor and large amount of natural resources from

9417-577: The United States. Brazil was predicted to be in the fifth position. This was attributed due to the global economic center shifting from the Atlantic to the Asia Pacific region. The economics team at Goldman Sachs released a follow-up report to its initial BRIC study in 2004. The report states that in the BRIC nations, the number of people with an annual income over a threshold of $ 3,000 will double in number within three years and reach 800 million people within

9546-411: The acronym may use normal case rules, e.g. it would appear generally in lower case, but with an initial capital when starting a sentence or when in a title. Once knowledge of the words underlying such an acronym has faded from common recall, the acronym may be termed an anacronym . Examples of anacronyms are the words " scuba ", " radar ", and " laser ". The word "an acro nym" should not be confused with

9675-537: The acronym stands for is called its expansion . The meaning of an acronym includes both its expansion and the meaning of its expansion. The word acronym is formed from the Greek roots akro- , meaning 'height, summit, or tip', and -nym , 'name'. This neoclassical compound appears to have originated in German , with attestations for the German form Akronym appearing as early as 1921. Citations in English date to

9804-577: The adoption of acronyms was modern warfare, with its many highly technical terms. While there is no recorded use of military acronyms dating from the American Civil War (acronyms such as "ANV" for " Army of Northern Virginia " post-date the war itself), they became somewhat common in World War I , and by World War II they were widespread even in the slang of soldiers, who referred to themselves as G.I.s . The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across

9933-497: The apostrophe should be reserved for the possessive ("the TV's antenna"). In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the acronym is used to indicate plural words: for example, the Spanish EE.UU. , for Estados Unidos ('United States'). This old convention is still sometimes followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as SS. for Saints , pp. for

10062-1159: The case. Sometimes function words are included to make a pronounceable acronym, such as CORE ( Congress of Racial Equality ). Sometimes the letters representing these words are written in lower case, such as in the cases of "TfL" (" Transport for London ") and LotR ( The Lord of the Rings ); this usually occurs when the acronym represents a multi-word proper noun. Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal ) in names are often represented by digits rather than initial letters, as in "4GL" (" fourth generation language ") or "G77" (" Group of 77 "). Large numbers may use metric prefixes , as with " Y2K " for "Year 2000". Exceptions using initials for numbers include " TLA " ("three-letter acronym/abbreviation") and "GoF" (" Gang of Four "). Abbreviations using numbers for other purposes include repetitions, such as " A2DP " ("Advanced Audio Distribution Profile"), " W3C " ("World Wide Web Consortium"), and T3 ( Trends, Tips & Tools for Everyday Living ); pronunciation, such as " B2B " ("business to business"); and numeronyms , such as "i18n" ("internationalization"; "18" represents

10191-413: The compact discs). In some instances, however, an apostrophe may increase clarity: for example, if the final letter of an abbreviation is "S", as in "SOS's" (although abbreviations ending with S can also take "-es", e.g. "SOSes"), or when pluralizing an abbreviation that has periods. A particularly rich source of options arises when the plural of an acronym would normally be indicated in a word other than

10320-478: The comparatively much lower growth rate seen in Brazil. However, Brazil's lower growth rate obscures the fact that the country is wealthier than China or India on a per-capita basis, has a more developed and global integrated financial system and has an economy potentially more diverse than the other BRICs due to its raw material and manufacturing potential. Many other Eastern European countries, such as Poland , Romania ,

10449-557: The contrived acronym "P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H." The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and pre-dates modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are: The earliest example of a word derived from an acronym listed by the OED is "abjud" (now " abjad "), formed from the original first four letters of the Arabic alphabet in the late eighteenth century. Some acrostics pre-date this, however, such as

10578-603: The country is experiencing the same factors that the other countries first included present. While South Korea was not originally included in the BRICs, recent solid economic growth led to Goldman Sachs proposing to add Mexico and South Korea to the BRICs, changing the acronym to BRIMCK, with Jim O'Neill pointing out that Korea "is better placed than most others to realize its potential due to its growth-supportive fundamentals". A Goldman Sachs paper published later in December 2005 explained why Mexico and South Korea were not included in

10707-467: The country's influence and power relative to other members. Other critics suggest that BRIC is nothing more than a neat acronym for the four largest emerging market economies, but in economic and political terms nothing else links the four (apart from the fact that they are all big emerging markets). While China and India are manufacturing-based economies and rely on imports, Brazil and Russia are large exporters of natural resources. The Economist , in

10836-438: The dictionary entries and style guide recommendations regarding the term acronym through the twentieth century did not explicitly acknowledge or support the expansive sense. The Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage from 1994 is one of the earliest publications to advocate for the expansive sense, and all the major dictionary editions that include a sense of acronym equating it with initialism were first published in

10965-590: The economic indicators are remarkably similar in global rankings between the different economies. It also suggests that, while economic arguments can be made for linking Mexico into the BRIC thesis, the case for including South Korea looks considerably weaker. Note: All data above is from Goldman Sachs, except the 2030 USDA column is data from U.S. Department of Agriculture (2030 USDA) about World's 20 Largest Economies in 2030, but only 16 match with Goldman Sachs data. In 2030 USDA, Mexico and Indonesia will topple South Korea (please see Section Proposed inclusions ). There

11094-423: The enormous potential markets in the BRIC countries. This would present itself in the automobile and other manufactured goods markets, as companies would produce far cheaper goods affordable to the consumers within the BRIC economies in lieu of the luxury models that may traditionally bring the most revenue. The report cites India and China as examples of countries which had already begun making their presence felt in

11223-643: The exclusive sense for acronym and its earliest citation was from 1943. In early December 2010, Duke University researcher Stephen Goranson published a citation for acronym to the American Dialect Society e-mail discussion list which refers to PGN being pronounced "pee-gee-enn", antedating English language usage of the word to 1940. Linguist Ben Zimmer then mentioned this citation in his December 16, 2010 " On Language " column about acronyms in The New York Times Magazine . By 2011,

11352-763: The final word if spelled out in full. A classic example is "Member of Parliament", which in plural is "Members of Parliament". It is possible then to abbreviate this as "M's P", which was fairly common in mid-twentieth-century Australian news writing (or similar ), and used by former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley . This usage is less common than forms with "s" at the end, such as "MPs", and may appear dated or pedantic. In common usage, therefore, "weapons of mass destruction" becomes "WMDs", "prisoners of war" becomes "POWs", and "runs batted in" becomes "RBIs". Abbreviations that come from single, rather than multiple, words – such as "TV" ("television") – are usually pluralized without apostrophes ("two TVs"); most writers feel that

11481-457: The financial and economic development of key emerging nations such as Brazil, India, China, and Russia. For global investors, India and China constitute both large-scale production platforms and reservoirs of new consumers, whereas Russia is viewed essentially as an exporter of oil and commodities- Brazil and Latin America being somehow "in the middle". Academics and experts have suggested that China

11610-458: The first letter of acronyms, reserving all-caps styling for initialisms, writing the pronounced acronyms "Nato" and "Aids" in mixed case, but the initialisms "USA" and "FBI" in all caps. For example, this is the style used in The Guardian , and BBC News typically edits to this style (though its official style guide, dating from 2003, still recommends all-caps ). The logic of this style is that

11739-407: The four BRIC countries and South Korea should not be really thought of as emerging markets in the classical sense", adding that they are a "critical part of the modern globalised economy" and "just as central to its functioning as the current G7". The term is primarily used in the economic and financial spheres as well as in academia . Its usage has grown specially in the investment sector, where it

11868-465: The four countries, Brazil remains the only polity that can continue all elements, meaning manufacturing, services, and resource supplying simultaneously. Cooperation is thus hypothesized to be a logical next step among the BRICs because Brazil and Russia together form the logical commodity suppliers. In 2016, an Australian economist predicted that in 2050, China and India will be first and second respectively in terms of GDP per capita spending, surpassing

11997-448: The fund into emerging markets countries. Jim O'Neill, the inventor of the term "BRIC", was the former chief economist of Goldman Sachs and retired from the firm in 2013. The head of emerging markets for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Ruchir Sharma , released a book in 2012 entitled Breakout Nations . Sharma posited that such rapid growth for more than a decade is difficult to maintain, with outside commenters connecting this to

12126-565: The group. The capital "S" in BRICS stands for South Africa. President Jacob Zuma attend the BRICS summit in Sanya in April 2011 as a full member. South Africa stands at a unique position to influence African economic growth and investment. According to Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs who originally coined the term, Africa's combined current gross domestic product is reasonably similar to that of Brazil and Russia, and slightly above that of India. South Africa

12255-625: The group. Martin's study is being further developed by the Federal University of the Minas Gerais State, in Brazil. Some observers have argued that geographic diversification would eventually generate superior risk-adjusted returns for long-term global investors by reducing overall portfolio risk while capturing some of the higher rates of return offered by the emerging markets of Asia , Eastern Europe and Latin America . By doing so, these institutional investors have contributed to

12384-435: The king". In English, abbreviations have previously been marked by a wide variety of punctuation . Obsolete forms include using an overbar or colon to show the ellipsis of letters following the initial part. The forward slash is still common in many dialects for some fixed expressions—such as in w/ for "with" or A/C for " air conditioning "—while only infrequently being used to abbreviate new terms. The apostrophe

12513-486: The label "usage problem". However, many English language dictionaries, such as the Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary , Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary , Macmillan Dictionary , Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English , New Oxford American Dictionary , Webster's New World Dictionary , and Lexico from Oxford University Press do not acknowledge such a sense. Most of

12642-836: The language to changing circumstances. In this view, the modern practice is just the "proper" English of the current generation of speakers, much like the earlier abbreviation of corporation names on ticker tape or newspapers. Exact pronunciation of "word acronyms" (those pronounced as words rather than sounded out as individual letters) often vary by speaker population. These may be regional, occupational, or generational differences, or simply personal preference. For instance, there have been decades of online debate about how to pronounce GIF ( / ɡ ɪ f / or / dʒ ɪ f / ) and BIOS ( / ˈ b aɪ oʊ s / , / ˈ b aɪ oʊ z / , or / ˈ b aɪ ɒ s / ). Similarly, some letter-by-letter initialisms may become word acronyms over time, especially in combining forms: IP for Internet Protocol

12771-457: The lowest investment-grade rating. A week before Fitch released the rating, S&P stated that India could become the first of the BRIC countries to lose investment-grade status. Based on a March 2011 Forbes report, the BRIC countries counted 301 billionaires among their combined populations, exceeding the number of billionaires in Europe, which stood at 300 in 2011. A Goldman Sachs paper published in December 2005 explained why Mexico

12900-463: The more general "x" can be used to replace an unspecified number of letters. Examples include "Crxn" for "crystallization" and the series familiar to physicians for history , diagnosis , and treatment ("hx", "dx", "tx"). Terms relating to a command structure may also sometimes use this formatting, for example gold, silver, and bronze levels of command in UK policing being referred to as Gx, Sx, and Bx. There

13029-526: The next BRIC. Analysts from rival banks have sought to move beyond the BRIC concept, by introducing their own groupings of emerging markets. Proposals include CIVETs (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), the EAGLES (Emerging and Growth-Leading Economies) and the 7 percent club (which includes those countries which have averaged economic growth of at least 7 percent a year). In their paper "BRICs and Beyond", Goldman Sachs stated that "Mexico,

13158-506: The one with the big reserves . They are the biggest potential market . They are the U.S. partner in the G2 (imagine the coverage a G2 meeting gets vs. a G8 meeting) and the E2 (no climate deal without them) and so on." Deutsche Bank Research stated in a report that "economically, financially and politically, China overshadows and will continue to overshadow the other BRICs". It added that China's economy

13287-436: The original BRICs. According to the paper, among the other countries they looked at, only Mexico and South Korea have the potential to rival the BRICs, but they are economies that they decided to exclude initially because they looked to them as already more developed. However, due to the popularity of the Goldman Sachs thesis, "BRIMC" and "BRICK" are becoming more generic marketing terms to refer to these six countries. Because of

13416-552: The other BRICs, which are ranked as "mostly unfree". Henry Kissinger has stated that the BRIC nations have no hope of acting together as a coherent bloc in world affairs and that any cooperation will be the result of forces acting on the individual nations. In a not-so-subtle dig critical of the term as nothing more than a shorthand for emerging markets generally, critics have suggested a correlating term, CEMENT ( C ountries in E merging M arkets E xcluded by N ew T erminology). Whilst they accept there has been spectacular growth of

13545-721: The plural of 'pages', or mss. for manuscripts . The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms is all-uppercase ( all caps ). Small caps are sometimes used to make the run of capital letters seem less jarring to the reader. For example, the style of some American publications, including the Atlantic Monthly and USA Today , is to use small caps for acronyms longer than three letters; thus "U.S." and " FDR " in normal caps, but " nato " in small caps. The acronyms " AD " and " BC " are often smallcapped as well, as in: "From 4004 bc to ad 525 ". Where an acronym has linguistically taken on an identity as regular word,

13674-638: The popularity of the Goldman Sachs thesis "BRIC", this term has sometimes been extended whereby "BRICK" (K for South Korea) and "BRIMC" (M for Mexico) refer to these proposed expansions. Other proposed groupings include "BRICA" ( GCC Arab countries— Saudi Arabia , Qatar , Kuwait , Bahrain , Oman and the United Arab Emirates ) and "BRICET" (including Eastern Europe and Turkey ) and have become more generic marketing terms to refer to these emerging markets. In an August 2010 op-ed , Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs argued that Africa could be considered

13803-408: The potential for the BRIC economies to slow their rapid economic rise. This idea was partially accepted by O'Neill in 2023, who commented that in the time since the initial proposal of the BRIC term, the BRIC economies were unlikely to reach the 2050 projections published in the Goldman Sachs reported. O'Neill attributed this to post-2012 developments including government decisions and consequences from

13932-483: The pronunciation is reflected graphically by the capitalization scheme. However, it conflicts with conventional English usage of first-letter upper-casing as a marker of proper names in many cases; e.g. AIDS stands for acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome which is not a proper name, while Aids is in the style of one. Some style manuals also base the letters' case on their number. The New York Times , for example, keeps "NATO" in all capitals (while several guides in

14061-674: The publication of the 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary added the expansive sense to its entry for acronym and included the 1940 citation. As the Oxford English Dictionary structures the senses in order of chronological development, it now gives the "initialism" sense first. English language usage and style guides which have entries for acronym generally criticize the usage that refers to forms that are not pronounceable words. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage says that acronym "denotes abbreviations formed from initial letters of other words and pronounced as

14190-404: The reports published by Goldman Sachs, which presented an optimistic possibility of the BRIC economies in the year 2050, were most likely not going to come true as economic downturns in the 2010s and early 2020s severely altered the trajectory of each country's economies. The acronym was co-opted by the countries themselves beginning in the late-2000s. The 1st BRIC summit in 2009, which founded

14319-682: The revised 2007 figures, based on increased and sustaining growth, more inflows into foreign direct investment, Goldman Sachs predicts that "from 2007 to 2020, India's GDP per capita in US$ terms will quadruple", and that the Indian economy will surpass the United States (in US$ ) by 2043. At the same time, the report indicated that Russia, while continuing its dominance of the European energy market , would continue to struggle economically, as its population declines. According to

14448-657: The service and manufacturing sector respectively in the global arena, with developed economies already taking note of this. A second follow-up report was compiled by lead authors Tushar Poddar and Eva Yi in January 2007. The report unveiled updated projection figures attributed to the rising growth trends in India since 2003. Goldman Sachs asserts that "India's influence on the world economy will be bigger and quicker than implied in our previously published BRICs research". They noted significant areas of research and development and expansion that

14577-470: The sides of railroad cars (e.g., "Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad" → "RF&P"); on the sides of barrels and crates; and on ticker tape and newspaper stock listings (e.g. American Telephone and Telegraph Company → AT&T). Some well-known commercial examples dating from the 1890s through 1920s include " Nabisco " ("National Biscuit Company"), " Esso " (from "S.O.", from " Standard Oil "), and " Sunoco " ("Sun Oil Company"). Another field for

14706-674: The strongest growth rate in the OECD . More importantly, it has a significantly higher Growth Environment Score (Goldman Sachs' way of measuring the long-term sustainability of growth) than all of the BRICs or N-11s. According to the IMF , South Korea's GDP measured by purchasing power parity is already larger than Canada and Spain . In terms of GDP per capita (PPP) , South Korea overtook Spain in 2010. According to Citibank, South Korea will continue by overtaking Germany , Britain , Australia and Sweden by 2020, surpassing Canada , Switzerland , Netherlands and Norway by 2030 and taking over

14835-556: The ten largest countries by incremental GDP are occupied by the BRICs and N11 nations, in which the United States remains to be the only G7 member as one of the three biggest contributors to the global economic growth. At the World Economic Forum 2011, there were 365 corporate executives from BRIC and other emerging nations out of 1000 participants. It was a record number of executives from emerging markets. Nomura Holdings Inc's co-head of global investment banking said that "It's

14964-468: The term acronym only for forms pronounced as a word, and using initialism or abbreviation for those that are not. Some sources acknowledge the usage, but vary in whether they criticize or forbid it, allow it without comment, or explicitly advocate it. Some mainstream English dictionaries from across the English-speaking world affirm a sense of acronym which does not require being pronounced as

15093-502: The terms as mutually exclusive. Other guides outright deny any legitimacy to the usage: Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words says "Abbreviations that are not pronounced as words (IBM, ABC, NFL) are not acronyms; they are just abbreviations." Garner's Modern American Usage says "An acronym is made from the first letters or parts of a compound term. It's read or spoken as a single word, not letter by letter." The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says "Unless pronounced as

15222-524: The time as well as the dramatic under-representation of these economies in the global capital markets . The report also emphasizes the enormous populations that exist within the BRIC nations, which makes it relatively easy for their aggregate wealth to eclipse the G6 , while per-capita income levels remained far below the norm of today's industrialized countries. This phenomenon, too, will affect world markets as multinational corporations will attempt to take advantage of

15351-552: The twenty-first century. The trend among dictionary editors appears to be towards including a sense defining acronym as initialism : the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added such a sense in its 11th edition in 2003, and both the Oxford English Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary added such senses in their 2011 editions. The 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary only included

15480-536: The whole range of linguistic registers is relatively new in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-twentieth century. As literacy spread and technology produced a constant stream of new and complex terms, abbreviations became increasingly convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) records the first printed use of the word initialism as occurring in 1899, but it did not come into general use until 1965, well after acronym had become common. In English, acronyms pronounced as words may be

15609-425: The word " an achro nym ", which is a type of misnomer. Words derived from an acronym by affixing are typically expressed in mixed case, so the root acronym is clear. For example, "pre-WWII politics", "post-NATO world", " DNase ". In some cases a derived acronym may also be expressed in mixed case. For example, " messenger RNA " and " transfer RNA " become "mRNA" and "tRNA". Some publications choose to capitalize only

15738-468: The world's five most influential economies outside of the G6. On the other hand, when the "R" in BRIC is extended beyond Russia and is used as a loose term to include all of Eastern Europe as well, then the BRIC story becomes more compelling. At issue are the multiple serious problems which confront Russia (potentially unstable government, environmental degradation, critical lack of modern infrastructure, etc.), and

15867-428: The world's population and held a combined GDP (PPP) of $ 20 trillion. On almost every scale, they would be the largest entity on the global stage and were among the largest and fastest-growing emerging markets . Politically, they have taken steps to increase their cooperation, mainly as a way of influencing the United States position on major trade accords, or, through the implicit threat of political cooperation, as

15996-420: The years, many well-known Dutch Africanists have worked at the African Studies Centre, including the poet Vernie February, the activist Klaas de Jonge, the sociologist Robert Buijtenhuijs and the law professor and film director Emile van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal . Legal scholar Hans Holleman served as a director from 1963 to 1969. Barbara Harrell-Bond worked at the centre in the 1970s, as did Deborah Bryceson in

16125-511: Was done with a full space between every full word (e.g. A. D. , i. e. , and e. g. for " Anno Domini ", " id est ", and " exempli gratia "). This even included punctuation after both Roman and Arabic numerals to indicate their use in place of the full names of each number (e.g. LII. or 52. in place of "fifty-two" and "1/4." or "1./4." to indicate "one-fourth"). Both conventions have fallen out of common use in all dialects of English, except in places where an Arabic decimal includes

16254-401: Was envisaged by Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov in the 1990s. The G20 forum of developing states includes all the BRIC countries. South Africa sought BRIC membership since 2009 and the process for formal admission began as early as August 2010. South Africa was officially admitted as a BRIC nation on 24 December 2010, after being invited by China and the other BRIC countries to join

16383-449: Was little to no naming , conscious attention, or systematic analysis until relatively recent times. Like retronymy, it became much more common in the twentieth century than it had formerly been. Ancient examples of acronymy (before the term "acronym" was invented) include the following: During the mid- to late nineteenth century, acronyms became a trend among American and European businessmen: abbreviating corporation names, such as on

16512-481: Was never intended to be an investment thesis. If investors read Goldman's research carefully and agreed with the conclusions, then they would gain exposure to Asian debt and equity markets rather than to Latin America . According to estimates provided by the USDA, the wealthiest regions outside of the G6 in 2015 will be Hong Kong , South Korea and Singapore . Combined with China and India, these five economies are likely to be

16641-496: Was not included in the original BRICs. The Economist publishes an annual table of socio-economic national statistics in its "Pocket World in Figures". Extrapolating the global rankings from their 2008 Edition for the BRIC countries and economies in relation to various categories provides an interesting touchstone in relation to the economic underpinnings of the BRIC thesis. It also illustrates how, despite their divergent economic bases,

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