"Scuba: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
French explorer Jacques Cousteau teamed up with engineer Émile Gagnan in 1943 to develop the first Aqua-Lung, a fully automatic device with compressed air for diving. Today, we call this device a “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus,” or “scuba.” The acronym “scuba” has been around since the 1950s, but the word is so widely known that “scuba” is no longer written in all capital letters, and the acronym is now written as a regular word." - wordsmarts dot com
I was in the war and met Émile on leave in France in 42 and thought he was talking shit. I should really send him a note.