Dock Landing Ship, as an acronym, stands for what?

• A. Dock Landing Ship
• B. Landing Ship Dock
• C. Landing Dock Ship
• D. Dock Ship Landing

Answer: (A)

Focus here is on how acronyms reflect the exact order of the words they stand for. Taking the initials in the order given by the phrase, D, L, S, you get Dock, Landing, Ship. That makes the expansion Dock Landing Ship. The other word orders would yield different initials (Landing Ship Dock would be LSD, Landing Dock Ship would be LDS, Dock Ship Landing would be DSL), so they don’t match the acronym in question. For broader context, note that the more commonly heard designation in Navy usage is Landing Ship Dock, whose initials are LSD; this helps explain why various word orders can be confusing, but the correct match to Dock Landing Ship is exactly that sequence.