An Observation About Initialisms

Television
1

So I was on Discord, and someone was talking about abbreviations for Doctor Who stories, and how many of them share an initialism. So I decided to write them all out and see what I noticed. But first, I had to set some rules for consistency. For an initialism, it should be every word I think, not excluding the, of, and, etc. so I’ve included every word. Compound words counted for one letter, but hyphenated for two. The symbol & was treated as “and” so A. Lastly, if the title contains a numeral, it was assigned as if it was spelled out, also see rules on hyphenated words.

So the ones that share initialisms:
AOTC - Attack of the Cybermen, Ascension of the Cybermen
B - Battlefield, Blink, Boom
D - Dragonfire, Dalek, Doomsday
DOTD - Day of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks (the 50th anniversary special starts with “The,” so is TDOTD)
E - Earthshock, Enlightenment, Extremis
EOTD - Evolution of the Daleks, Eve of the Daleks
F - Frontios, Flatline
K - Kinda, Kerblam!
L - Logopolis, Listen, Lux
M - Meglos, Mindwarp, Midnight
POTD - Planet of the Daleks, Planet of the Dead
R - Robot, Rose, Rosa, Resolution, Rogue
ROTC - Revenge of the Cybermen, Rise of the Cybermen
ROTD - Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, Revolution of the Daleks
S - Shada, Snakedance, Survival, Smile, Spyfall
T - Terminus, Timelash
TA - The Aztecs, The Ark, The Awakening
TBB - The Beast Below, The Big Bang (in the same season)
TC - The Crusade, The Chase, The Caretaker
TCOA - The Claws of Axos, The Caves of Androzani
TD - The Daleks, The Dominators, The Dæmons
TDD - The Doctor Dances, The Doctor’s Daughter
TEOTW - The Enemy of the World, The End of the World
TG - The Gunfighters, The Giggle
TH - The Highlanders, Time Heist
TI - The Invasion, Thin Ice
TL - Turn Left, The Lodger
TM - The Massacre, The Moonbase, The Mutants
TPOTD - The Power of the Daleks, The Power of the Doctor
TR - The Rescue, The Romans (back to back)
TS - The Sensorites, The Savages, The Smugglers, The Snowmen
TSE - The Sontaran Experiment, The Stolen Earth
TSM - The Space Museum, The Sun Makers
TSOD - The Seeds of Death, The Seeds of Doom, The Sound of Drums
TSP - The Space Pirates, The Satan Pit
TTC - The Tsuranga Conundrum, The Timeless Children
TTD - The Three Doctors, The Twin Dilemma, The Two Doctors
TTM - The Time Meddler, The Time Monster
TV - The Visitation, The Vanquishers
TW - The Witchfinders, The Well
TZI - The Zygon Invasion, The Zygon Inversion (intentionally named of course)
U - Underworld, Utopia
VOTD - Voyage of the Damned, Victory of the Daleks

Completely pointless, just thought it was interesting, and it happens quite a lot.

17 Likes
2

This is the kind of niche nerdiness I live for!

I’ve always enjoyed ROTD but I prefer ROTD and ROTD.

8 Likes
3

I experience the “same initialism” issue a lot with these two, so I’ve started calling The Two Doctors, T2D.

There’s also ToaTL - Trial of a Time Lord and Trials of a Time Lord :roll_eyes:.

7 Likes
4

OMG!

4 Likes
5

Actually, I tend to replace numbers with #s as well, for that reason.

Also, The Trial of a Time Lord, so TTOATL

4 Likes
6

There’s even more if you start adding in the individual titles of the Hartnell era, including but not limited to:

Titles... of Doom!

“The Survivors”
“The Ambush”
“The Escape”
“The Expedition”
“The Rescue”
“The Sea of Death”
“Kidnap”
“Crisis”
“The Daleks”
“Flashpoint”
“Conspiracy”
“Inferno”
“Invasion”
“The Centre”
“The Lion”
“The Warlords”
“The Search”
“The Executioners”
“The Dimensions of Time”
“The Death of Time”
“The Watcher”
“Checkmate”
“The Return”

6 Likes
7

If you factor in the SJA serial, which features a Doctor, we also have Death of the Doctor.

8 Likes
8

My favourite initialisms are either HTWPaIP or TBSaORS4

4 Likes
9

Some of my favourite initialisms:

  • TDTWATW :eyes:
  • TUAT :eyes:
  • TUATW :eyes:

The fact that, if you squint, the Series 3 finale is kind of sort of almost SOD/U/LOTT.

6 Likes
10

I should include the individual titles as well, good point.

3 Likes
11

I love TWBTLATS, it’s just so dumb

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12

I’ll let you all figure them out

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13

Omega? :tardis:

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14

I got the first one but I have no clue what the second is

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15

It’s Tropical Beach Sounds and Other Relaxing Seascapes 4

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16

Yeah, I would’ve never got that.

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17

I’ve mostly seen earthshock shortened to ES since it’s a compound word

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18

I explained that I am treating compound words as one, because they are one word.

1 Like
19

It’s great, i love it dearly

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20

so many Episodes of the Daleks…