The term ACAB has recently gained significant traction on the Internet. Urban Dictionary listed it as the top trending definition on June 2nd, Google searches for it have surged since the start of the George Floyd protests, and currently, there are approximately five tweets per minute with the hashtag #ACAB. Originating in English prisons during the 1970s, the acronym “ACAB” stands for “all cops are bastards”. Initially used by inmates who would either scratch it on walls or tattoo it on their knuckles, the term gained popularity outside prison walls through punk bands and during riots. The use of ACAB became so controversial that several European countries banned its usage, leading some to encode it as 1312, representing the letters’ positions in the alphabet. More recently, there has been a trend of using the term with lowercase letters, sometimes as an adjective (e.g. “John is a pretty acab person”) or a noun (“John supports acab”). It will be intriguing to observe how its usage evolves linguistically in the future.
