When I use a word . . . Acronymic sleuths

My taxonomy of the various types of sleuths includes: investigative sleuths, who investigate crimes: diagnostic sleuths, clinicians and pathologists who pursue medical diagnoses; research sleuths, clinicians and epidemiologists who search for the causes of diseases and academics in any discipline who undertake research of any kind; and integrity sleuths, who scrutinise the publications of others, looking for evidence of misconduct. In addition to these categories, I have also identified acronymic sleuths, or rather SLEUTHs. An acronym is a pronounceable word usually formed from the first letters of a set of words, although sometimes an acronym may purloin letters from letters in other places in the words that the acronym is representing. Furthermore, acronyms should not be confused with other types of verbal abbreviations, such as initialisms, shortenings, contractions, and back-formations. In at least one case the acronym SLEUTH has been used to describe the discovery that surgeon’s lockers may contain a range of items, including medications and many different pieces of surgical equipment, that could be susceptible to theft.