An acronym is an abbreviation of a phrase that is pronounced as a word, and twoc is based on the wording in a clause of the UK’s 1968 Theft Act: Taken Without Owner’s Consent. The capitalized acronym is officially used by the police in England and Wales to describe any unauthorized use of a vehicle that is not actual theft. Common synonyms are UTMV (Unauthorised Taking of a Motor Vehicle), and TADA or TDA (Taken [and] Driven Away). With the sharp rise in car crime in the early 1990s, TWOC became decapitalized and used in police slang as a verb, spawning the noun derivatives twoccing for the activity and twoccer for perpetrators. This usage quickly filtered into general British slang.