Gramogram

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".^[1][2][3] They are a subset of rebuses, and are commonly used as abbreviations.

Instant-messaging app ICQ is a gramogram for "I seek you".

They are sometimes used as a component of cryptic crossword clues.^[1][4]

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".^[2]

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",^[5] 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.^[6] Steig has been credited as being a founder of this literary technique.^[7][8]

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^[9] 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.^[10][11]

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

• Logogram – Grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme
• Rebus – Allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words
• SMS language – Abbreviated slang used in text messaging