The Acrimony of Acronyms
Among all the toils and tribulations of writing (e.g., AP-Style changes, language barriers, multiple meanings), the worst torture rack to any sentence could be the acronym! They suck, and what’s more, people can’t seem to agree on what is an acronym and what is an initialism. Then, there are abbreviations and acrostics. And let’s not get started on mnemonics. Does the madness ever stop? If there are smart phones, no @#$%& way.
For those scoring at home, let’s manage this before we continue berating “smartphone chatting” and the Biblical plague of acronyms.
Acronym—An actual word that has been formed by the first letter of several other words (i.e., SCUBA=self-contained underwater breathing apparatus)
Initialism—A small group of words that is shortened by the first letter of each to make something known for its initials (i.e., FBI=Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Abbreviation—A shortened form of a single word or group of words that doesn’t necessarily create a new word (i.e., etc = et cetera meaning “and the rest” because the full list is too tedious to write)
Acrostic—A poem, puzzle, or affirmation that takes the first letter of a word to build out context, meaning, and phrases (i.e., “HOMEWORK” is “Half Of My Energy Wasted On Random Knowledge.”)
Mnemonic—A pattern or collection of letters used as mental cues, passwords, or memory aids (i.e., “The Four Ps of Storytelling” are People, Places, Plot, and Purpose)
Make sense? On with the show…
Acronyms Kill Brain Cells
Why would anyone—much less someone who loves to write—develop a nervous tick and deep-seated angst against acronyms? Have you seen texting lately? People are always searching for ways to gain a few seconds back from their precious time. There are voluminous blog posts on the ever-growing lists of text lingo. Now smartphone owners have grown accustomed to typing these shorthand terms via phone. They are now used as ordinary speech.
If you see a text or instant message full of these codeword-clearance acronyms, you spend longer reading it because of ending up deciphering what was just said. Life would be easier if we could write and spell things out. In a 2014 book, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, Harvard Professor Steven A. Pinker summarizes the mental anguish brought on by these abbreviated words.
Writers forget that the few seconds they add to their own lives come at the cost of many minutes stolen from the lives of their readers. I stare at a table of numbers whose columns are labeled DA DN SA SN, and have to flip back and scan for the explanation: Dissimilar Affirmative, Dissimilar Negative, Similar Affirmative, Similar Negative. Each abbreviation is surrounded by many inches of white space. What possible reason could there have been for the author not to spell them out? (p. 64)
“Many minutes stolen?” Yes, it’s theft of time and brain cells. And speaking of the brain, even mental health experts agree. In the American Psychological Association’s handbook of style, we are told what the heinous onslaught of overusing acronyms can do to people unwittingly.
To maximize clarity, use abbreviations sparingly.
Also consider readers’ familiarity with the abbreviation before using it. Although abbreviations can be useful for long, technical terms in scholarly writing, communication is often garbled rather than clarified if an abbreviation is unfamiliar to readers. In general, use an abbreviation if (a) it is conventional, and readers are likely to be more familiar with the abbreviation than with the complete form and (b) considerable space can be saved and cumbersome repetition avoided.
Lovely. Now that Harvard and every psychologist in the land is on the right side of acronyms, what else should we discuss?
The Acronyms of Heavenly Origins
One thing about the founder of Woodworks Communications—that's me—that people rarely see coming is that I am a Seminary Graduate. Why writing? Some people grow up to preach, and others teach. God gave me a passion for writing. That said, I learned something crafting this post that I never knew in those years in Bible College.
You would think blame the government, military, or healthcare for acronyms. No, we may have to look a little higher to place the blame. Acronymy can be traced back to the Middle East, say around a few years anno domini. After the death of Jesus Christ, proselytizing became frowned upon by the Roman electorate for the sake and fear of revolt. Followers of Christ needed to find each other in a crowd to have small groups of like-minded people—known now as "church." But email or direct mail wasn't a thing in those days. They needed a signal, one free of fear in case of approaching the wrong person.
Someone would approach another person out shopping, thinking they looked familiar, so that they would trace half of that symbol on the rock in the sand. If the other person connected the lines and made a fish, they knew they were family and could talk about Jesus openly. That "Christian fish" is known as an "ichthus" (or, in Greek, ichthys). Also, "fish" in Koine Greek is…you guessed it…ichthys. However, that is an acronym for Iēsous Christos, Theou Huios, Sōtēr ("Jesus Christ, God's son, Savior").
Often, that symbol has been shown with "IXOYE" in the middle of it, usually on the back of a few vehicles weaving in and out of traffic like a speedskater on ice. Despite that irony, God's children are known as "fishers of men" in the Bible, so there you have it—anglers, one and all.
Words You Probably Didn’t Know Were Acronyms
Acronyms are the bane of grammar’s existence, outside of every Millennial and Gen-Zer who owns a phone today. Despite the bottled-up aggression, there are a few words you either hear or use every once in a while, which would feel like a cattle prod of shock if you knew those “words” were really acronyms. Ready to have some fun?
ZIP CODE — You know those ancillary five digits at the end of your address? That’s not short for “zipper.” It’s an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, referring to the U.S. Postal Service’s scheme for improving their mail delivery codes.
YAHOO! — You may have heard the once immensely popular browser was named “Yahoo” because it was easy to remember. (NOTE: The word comes from Jonathan Swift's novel "Gulliver's Travels"). Actually, Yahoo’s two founders wanted an acronym instead, so with tongue firmly planted in cheek, they named their product, "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle."
TASER — The weapon of choice for people protecting themselves on a subway has an interesting etymology. Instead of a highfalutin term that smacks of mechanical engineering, it is actually named after an early 1900s science-fiction character named Tom Swift, who was like the Doogie Howser of inventions. So, that’s a Tom A. Smith Electric Rifle.
SNAFU — Well, this is actually a military acronym that you may have used before. And despite how clean your mouth is at the office, this term explains a messy situation: “Situation Normal, All Effed Up.”
RADAR — It is a cool tool used in military operations. This was also a goofy character on M.A.S.H. (Would you look at that? Another acronym.) It was an acronym used to name this new toy during World War II, “Radio Detection and Ranging.” Incidentally, the same structure is used for SONAR, which means “sound navigation and ranging.”
PAKISTAN — The Middle Eastern country not a favorite of international tourism. It borders Afghanistan, China, India, and Iran, yet this is not a country’s name. Really. That is an acronym first coined in 1933 by a geopolitical activist named Choudhry Rahmat Ali. He suggested that it worked as an acronym of the five northern regions of British India: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and, giving it its final few letters, Baluchistan.
LASER — Those guns in numerous science-fiction movies are legit, but they are also an acronym. No, really. Anything made by the military or nerds will be convoluted. In this case, it was both, so that gun is a “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” gun.
CARE — Not the term when you caught the feelings for someone, but the package you might send to a child at college or a loved one in the military. You’d think it was a universal term. People know about “care packages,” but it was from a nonprofit organization formed after World War II named Cooperative for American Remittances in Europe.
CAPTCHA — These are the random codes that ask you to enter a number sequence or click images to verify you are a human. This CAPTCHA code means "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart." Yes, in the early 2000s, humans needed help distinguishing people from robots.
BASE — This term is not used in baseball or the safe spot during a spirited game of tag. Those daredevil BASE jumpers find four types of structures to risk their lives for kicks and giggles—Building, Antenna, Span, or Earth. Pretty much covers it all.
