Singaporeans love Initialisms not Acronyms

Initialisms and Acronyms

The key difference between an acronym and an initialism is that an acronym forms a new word, while an initalism does not.

For example, you say “nay-toe” for NATO; this means you are saying a word, as opposed to saying each letter (ehn-ay-tee-oh). So “NATO” is an acronym. But “MRT” is an initialism for Mass Rapid Transit: you say each letter individually (you don’t say “mert”, so you know it’s not a word).

List of Popular Singaporean Initialisms
(with creative meanings)

ICA

Immigration & Checkpoints Authority

I Chope Already

COE	Cetificate of Entitlement	Cash On Expressway or worse, “Si hor yi” (give them after death)
CPF	Central Provident Fund	Cash Prior to Funeral or Coffin Provision Fund
DBS	Development Bank of Singapore	Damn! Boh Salary
EDB	Economic Development Board	Enough, Don’t Bluff
ERP	Electronic Road Pricing	Everytime Raise Price or Everyday Rob People (contributed by Judhi)
GST	Goods and Services Tax	Government Salary Tax or Go Squeeze Them
HDB	Housing Development Board	Highly Dangerous Building
LTA	Land Transport Authority	Long Tio Ah (crash!)
MAS	Monetary Authority of Singapore	Mad Accounting System/ Must Always Suffer
MOE	Ministry of Environment	Muggers Only Environment
MRT	Mass Rapid Transit	Mad Rush to Train
NTU	Nanyang Technological University	Ninja Turtle University
NUH	National University Hospital	Never Use Heart
NUS	National University of Singapore	Never Use Sense/ Not Up to Standard/ Nothing Up Stairs
NUSSU	NUS Student Union	No Use, So Screw Up
OCBC	Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation	Owe Cash, Boh Credit
OUB	Overseas Union Bank	Owe Until Bankrupt
PAP	People’s Action Party	Pay And Pay
POSB	Post Office Savings Bank	Purposely Owe Some Banks
PSA	Port of Singapore Authority	Poor Ships Ahead
PSI	Pollution Safety Index	Please Stay Indoors
PUB	Public Utilities Board	Pay Until Broke
PWD	Public Works Department	Purposely Want to Dig
SAF	Singapore Armed Forces	Serve And Forget
SBS	Singapore Bus Service	Super Blur Sotong/ Screwed-up and Bad Service
SDU	Social Development Unit	Single, Desperate and Ugly/ Sexually Depressed and Unwanted
SGH	Singapore General Hospital	Sure Giveup Hope
SIA	Singapore International Airlines	Suffer In Agony or Sex In Air
SMRT	Singapore Mass Rapid Transit	Sorry Must Repair Train
UOB	United Overseas Bank	You Owe Bank