Satisfactory Several non-Brits queried the name Ofsted in this piece (the one instance of Ofstead was of course a typo), which I should have explained. It stands for the “Office for Standards in Education”, and follows the naming model for the British sectoral regulatory bodies, all of which have begun in Of- or Off- for “office” (Ofgas, Oftel, Ofcom, Ofwat, Offrail). There’s even Ofreg, though this doesn’t regulate the other Offs, but is the Office for the Regulation of Electricity and Gas. Ofsted is a little different in that it borrows from the first two letters of each of the key words in its full title. I don’t know a name for this formulation: strictly speaking it’s neither an acronym ...