Etymology

In 1939, initialisms, previously rarely used except by the military, were heard more frequently by the British public. ITMA satirised them by coining TTFN, a "pointless" initialism (no easier to say than the phrase on which it was based) to use as a catchphrase, which became widely repeated in the UK. Thirty years later, Paul Winchell, following the suggestion of his third wife, Jean Freeman, who was British, improvised it as a signature phrase for the (originally British) character Tigger in the Disney films based on A. A. Milne's book, The House at Pooh Corner. This, in a world now accustomed to them, popularised worldwide a word originally coined to make fun of initialisms.