(COLIN LAMB) wrote in
:

Most of the acronyms or abbreviations were recognized, but one that
caught me by surprise was "Pascoela = Natives have plundered
everything from the wreck". Not too sure it would be useful today.
I am guessing Pascoela is an acronym from another language.

That's not an acronym or abbreviation but a code, intended to hide the
meaning of the message. Pascoela is the Portugese name for Easter
Monday (I think).

http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~reedsj/codebooks.html

Until about 1905 the vast majority of code books supplied
actual dictionary words (or artificial words) as their code
words, such as ``Snatch = Sutter Packing Co., Yuba City,
Cal.'' in the private code of the California Fruit Canners'
Association, or ``Pascoela = Natives have plundered everything
from the wreck,'' in the very popular general-purpose ABC
Code, some supplied number equivalents -- sometimes instead
of, and sometimes in addition to-- the code word equivalents.

But in the first decade of this century code books began
appearing with code words which were meaningless and often
unpronounceable fixed length groups of letters, usually of
five letters. Thus, in a later edition of the ABC Code we have
``ewvgl = Pascoela = Natives have plundered everything from
the wreck'' and so on.

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN |