Alphabet soup

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Alphabet soup is a kind of soup containing noodles shaped like the letters of the Latin alphabet although other alphabets are used in regional variants.

Alphabet soup is available as a prepared, canned broth with letter-shaped noodles. This type of soup is usually in the condensed form, to which the consumer adds water. A popular brand of condensed-style alphabet soup is Campbell's. Alphabet-shaped pasta can also be bought, and these noodles can be added to homemade soup. It is traditionally popular with American children and may be served by parents or schools to encourage young children to learn to read. Accordingly, the marketing of the product is geared toward young children.

Further information: Alphabets (pasta)

[edit] Metaphorical sense

In the metaphorical sense, an alphabet soup is an abundance of abbreviations or acronyms. In this sense, the term goes back at least as far 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, BATF, DEA and INS.

At times, the Central Asian republics (such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) that gained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union have been called "alphabet soup countries" because of their long and consonant-filled names.

The many sanctioning bodies of boxing (e.g., WBA, WBO, IBF, WBC, IBA, etc.) are often referred to disparagingly as "alphabet soup organizations."