Gramogram


A gramogram or 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". They are a subset of rebuses, and are commonly used as abbreviations.
They are commonly used as a component of cryptic crossword clues.
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".
A restaurant scene where a customer initially asks "FUNEX" appears in a 1949 book Hail fellow well met by Seymour Hicks and was performed in The Two Ronnies under the title Swedish made simple.
The book How to Double the Meaning of Life devotes three pages to gramograms, to which the author, Anil, gives the name letteral words.
neither spelling of the word appears in the online Oxford English Dictionary.
Some are homophones because some can be used for multiple words.

Examples for words

1: "Zee"

Examples of names

1: Only in North America

Examples of prefixes

1: Only used for names
2: Depends on your accent

Examples of sentences