People have been left shocked after only just realizing what ‘scuba’ actually stands for.
While the first open-circuit scuba system was developed 100 years ago by Yves Le Prieur but it wasn’t until 1942 that the first successful and safe open-circuit scuba was designed by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan.
Cousteau was also an explorer who was a groundbreaker in his field, even discovering the mysterious 400 foot Great Blue Hole in the Caribbean Sea and bringing it to the world’s attention.
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Since then, scuba has been a term people have associated with diving underwater.
However, social media users have been sent into a frenzy after finding out what the word actually means, with some not realizing that the word is an acronym.
It turns out that scuba actually stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.
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Taking to X, formerly Twitter, to react to the revelation, one user wrote: “'Wow this is the very first time I’m seeing the meaning to scuba.”
Another said: “It was originally a technical term used by the military and engineers, but it became so widely used that it evolved into a regular word.”
The acronym was first coined by Major Christian J. Lambertsen in 1952, who was a medical researcher from Westfield, New Jersey. But this isn’t the only word that is secretly an acronym.
There are plenty of words we commonly use everyday without realizing their origins.
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The word laser actually stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation while radar is short for Radio Detection and Ranging.
Since the word scuba has been popularized, Couseau’s grandson Fabien has followed in his footsteps.
Revisiting the giant hole in the sea first uncovered by his grandfather, Fabien decided to take on the feat of venturing down into the hole back in 2018.
Virgin boss Richard Branson joined him on the trip, which saw them traveling down in two submarines.
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There, they made some incredible and rather disturbing discoveries.
Below 300 feet, the water was dark and lifeless but at the bottom, they uncovered some hidden secrets.
Along the bottom of the put was discarded trash, including a two liter plastic bottle.
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There was also a lost GoPro which had some vacation photos captured on it.
However, another find was made that nobody expected.
Two bodies were uncovered lying on the seafloor.
These were the bodies of explorers who had gone missing on a previous expedition.
While the team along with Fabien and Branson made the decision that it was best to leave the corpses where they were, they did inform the Belize government.