Gramogram
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2023}}
{{Short description|Group of letters pronounced as if a word}}
File:Instant-messaging-icq3.jpg is a gramogram for "I seek you".]]
A gramogram, grammagram, or letteral word is a letter or group of letters which can be pronounced to form one or more words, as in "CU" for "see you".{{cite web|title=Cryptic crossword reference lists > Gramograms|url=https://www.highlightpress.com.au/cryptic-crosswords/gramograms|publisher=Highlight Press|access-date=28 March 2023}}{{cite web|title=Grammagrams|url=https://www.audreydeal.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=449:grammagrams&catid=42:wordplay&Itemid=72|publisher=Audrey Deal|access-date=28 March 2023}}{{cite web|title=Grammagrams|url=https://www.wordnik.com/lists/grammagrams|website=Wordnik|access-date=31 December 2016}} They are a subset of rebuses, and are commonly used as abbreviations.
They are sometimes used as a component of cryptic crossword clues.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2020-03-01.html |work=New York Times |title=Letter Dictation |author=Caitlin Lovinger |date=29 February 2020 |access-date=25 May 2022}}
In arts and culture
A poem reportedly appeared in the Woman's Home Companion of July 1903 using many gramograms: it was preceded by the line "ICQ out so that I can CU have fun translating the sound FX of this poem".
The Marcel Duchamp "readymade" L.H.O.O.Q. is an example of a gramogram. Those letters, pronounced in French, sound like "Elle a chaud au cul{{-"}}, an idiom which translates to "she has a hot ass",[https://books.google.com/books?id=dvfpAAAAMAAJ Anne Collins Goodyear, James W. McManus, National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution), Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture], National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2009, contributors Janine A. Mileaf, Francis M. Naumann, Michael R. Taylor, {{ISBN|0262013002}} or in Duchamp's words "there is fire down below".
The William Steig books CDB! (1968) and CDC? (1984) use letters in the place of words.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/nyregion/william-steig-95-dies-tough-youths-and-jealous-satyrs-scowled-in-his-cartoons.html |newspaper=The New York Times |title=William Steig, 95, Dies; Tough Youths and Jealous Satyrs Scowled in His Cartoons |author=Sarah Boxer |date=5 October 2003 |access-date=26 May 2022}} Steig has been credited as being a founder of this literary technique.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f8ovDwAAQBAJ |page=3 |title=D C-T! |author1=Joana Avillez |author2=Molly Young |year=2018 |isbn=9780525558057 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group}}{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303649504577492852506781194 |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal |title=The Surprising Fun of Visual Puns |author=Meghan Cox Gurdon |date=29 June 2012 |access-date=26 May 2022}}
The suicide prevention charity R U OK?'s name is a gramogram, with supporters encouraged to text "R U OK?" to friends and family to see how that person's mental health is going.
A short gramogram dialogue opening with a customer asking "FUNEX" ("Have you any eggs?") appears in a 1949 book Hail fellow well met by Seymour Hicks{{cite book|last1=Hicks|first1=Sir Seymour|title=Hail Fellow Well Met|date=1949|publisher=Staples Press|page=183|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWUqAAAAMAAJ&q=%22have+you+any+eggs%22+funex|access-date=31 December 2016}} and was expanded into a longer sketch of phrasebook-style gramogram dialogue for the comedy sketch show The Two Ronnies, under the title Swedish made simple.{{cite web|last1=Brennan|first1=Ailis|title=Ronnie Corbett dies: Here are his funniest seven sketches|date=31 March 2016 |url=http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/ronnie-corbett-funniest-sketches|publisher=GQ|access-date=31 December 2016}}{{cite news |title=Ronnie Corbett Christmas return: Puns upon a time |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12068221 |access-date=10 September 2021 |work=BBC News |date=24 December 2010}}
The 1980s Canadian gameshow Bumper Stumpers required contestants to decode gramograms presented as fictional vanity licence plates.
Here Come the ABCs, a 2005 children's album by They Might Be Giants, contains the song "I C U", which is entirely made up of gramograms.
See also
- {{annotated link|Logogram}}
- {{annotated link|Rebus}}
- {{annotated link|SMS language}}