On second thoughts, Dougie and I have decided to form a pressure group called the Association of Complainers Revolting Over Outlandish Use of Terminology, or ACRO-OUT. Blogigo readers are welcome to join but must refer to themselves using initials only.
Hope you'll join us soon,
LK & DH
I used to watch a television programme called Room 101. The term room 101 comes, I think, from an Orwell novel (1984), the concept of the show meanwhile, was to invite celebrities to put forward nominations of anything they believe is not necessary or of value in the world, in their opinion. These things, could be anything from cheesy musicals, to country music, to designer labels. The celebrity would have to make a case for their object of disdain to be sent to Room 101, carried on a conveyer-belt into a chamber of flames suggesting hell.
I would like to put forward my case against... acronyms. Not because the idea of acronyms is such a bad one, but because there are way too many. These range from the easy-enough to remember UNICEF, MSN etc which have no correlation between the 'word' formed by the letters, and the intended understanding of what the acronym represents, to more literal examples. Where I start to lose patience is when acronyms are used to prompt the meory, but are frankly ridiculous. My local supermarket has a posters telling their staff what to do in an armed hold-up. C - calm O - observe - O - obey and P - protect. Why not just say hand over the money happily and wait for the robber to leave? Isn't it just common sense? What do they think their staff will do, invite the robber to step outside for a punch-up in the carpark?
If this weren't enough, many industries use acronyms, not only to shorten terms to one-syllable words (I don't want to say Compact Disc or Digital Analog Tape anymre than you do). Fine as a concept, but one ends up on acronym overload. To ease this burden, I propose that as many acronyms as possible are replaced with nonsense words. I am today learning about an in-house computer application called MLIS. It produces invoices. I propose that it is re-named 'Bling'. Any acronyms used to refer to to non-payments are simply referred to as 'No-Bling'. At least in this was one could enjoy appparently silly conversations on a daily basis without the use of acronyms, whilst still using enough convaluted terminology to keep any who don't speak the lingo (e.g. customers) out of the loop.
What would you like to see go into Room 101? Please send a comment including your nomination and a reason for your choice.
Lois
P,S. Sorry I if I haven't responded to those who have sent me comments yet
