Alphabet soup is a metaphor for an abundance of abbreviations or acronyms, named for a common dish made from alphabet pasta. Use dates at least as far back as Franklin D. Roosevelt's alphabet agencies of the New Deal. In the United States, the Federal Government is described as an alphabet soup on account of the multitude of agencies that it has spawned, including the NSA, CIA, FBI, USSS, ATF, DEA, NCIS and INS. This phrase is especially used to described the alphabet agencies of the New Deal during the Great Depression. In 1938, a US barbershop harmony organization was founded, aptly named SPEBSQSA or The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. as a humorous lampoon to these numerous "alphabet soup" agencies.
Famous quotes containing the words alphabet and/or soup:
“I wonder, Mr. Bone man, what you’re thinking
of your fury now, gone sour as a sinking whale,
crawling up the alphabet on her own bones.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)