Asap comes from As Soon As Possible. Its use as an abbreviation comes from the American army in Korean and according to the Oxford English Dictionary was used in print for the first time by Capitan Annis Thompson, who was an army office and historian of the Combat Cargo Command. In her book called Greatest Airlift she describes in 1954 how airlifts were made in Korea on “an ASAP or ‘as soon as possible’ basis. The word was obviously taken up very quickly, because it appeared in a dictionary of abbreviations in London only the next year and was used at virtually the same time in the listings for property in a California newspapers in much the same way as it is used today “Call ASAP” and take advantage of a reduced price rental.
Google Trends indicates that there was a recent surge in headlines including asap over the last year or so. Obviously with the upturn of chatting, asap as a quick way of indicating urgency has come into its own. WRASAP is also used to indicate that the write will reply asap.
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