Acronyms

etc... u b a r . s n a f u .. . wtf. omg. lol. f

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s m y n o r c a

when did we start speaking in sets of capital

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letters

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Ri se of th e ac ro ny m an d it s si b lin g th e in it ia lis m

vda 2013

UPS 00 (001-1) no88

author Lane Green artwor e, Jon k Simo athan na sir Mead usait es d ė e d it o r SIMONA e s ig n Simon © simo a Siru na sir SIRUS saitė usait AITĖ © gra ė, 2013 phics depar tmen t of v ilnius acade code 00 my of 0-000-1 art, 2 11-000-1 013

c.o.n.t.e.n.t.s. acronym

- 07 nomenclature - 11 used before, used now - 13 current use - 15

omg, etc

- 19

THE MARCH OF THE ACRONYM - 51

rofl. wtf? omg! tmi ...

p.t t.o o.

pto

please turn over

...

e.g.

acronym

n v i a t i o a b b r e c a n e r e d u c o r e n e g a t s h y o b b i l i t y m e n t a

e v e r y a c r o n y m i s a n a b b r e v i a t i o n ; n o t e v e r y a b b r e v i a t i o n i s a n a c r o n y m a cr o n y m

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Every acronym is an abbreviation; not every abbreviation is an acronym

An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word.

These components may be individual letters (as in CEO) or parts of words (as in Benelux and Ameslan). There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of various names for such abbreviations nor on written usage. In English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process, and they are viewed as a subtype of blending.

w h a t

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a n

a c r o n y m

a n d

w h a t

d o

y o u

d o

w i t h

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acronym

w

11

dab

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dull and backward . yuppie

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young urban or upwardly mobile professional . wags

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wives and girlfriends . ghd

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good hair day . tg

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tiny gangster . ai

-

as if .

isaf i

international

suck

n o m e n c l a t u r e

stabilisation

at

forse for

fighting

y3

-

yada yada yada . pdf

-

pretty damn funny . ms

-

more shit . k

-

kiss . g 1

afganistan

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good one . eos

-

end of story . b 4

-

before .

e v e r y a c r o n y m i s a n a b b r e v i a t i o n ; n o t e v e r y a b b r e v i a t i o n i s a n a c r o n y m a cr o n y m

13 p.

Whilst an abbreviation is the shortened form of any initial, syllable or parts of a phrase or words, an initialism (or less commonly, alphabetism) refers to an abbreviation formed from, and used simply as, a string of initials. Although the term acronym is widely used to refer to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, some dictionaries define acronym to mean “a word” in its original sense, while some others include additional senses attributing to acronym the same meaning as that of initialism.The distinction, when made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a string of letters.

In such cases, examples found in dictionaries include NATO, scuba, and radar for acronyms, and FBI and HTML for initialism.

There is also some disagreement as to what to call abbreviations that some speakers pronounce as letters and others pronounce as a word. For example, the terms URL and IRA can be pronounced as individual letters: /`ju: ar el/ and /`ai ar ei/, respectively; or as a single word: / erl / and /`ai ra/, respectively. Such constructions, however — regardless of how they are pronounced — if formed from initials, may be identified as initialisms.

the spelled-out form of an acronym or initialism (that is what it stands for) is called its expansion.

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of f i c ia l

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Term acronym was formed from the Greek words, akros, “topmost, extreme” and ὄ νο μα , onoma, “name.”

aa

-

adios amigo . dnd

-

do not disturb . fa

-

fuck all . bmw

-

bought my wife . uncle

-

unified nuclear coalition of latvian emigrants . moto

-

master of the obvious .

e v e r y a c r o n y m i s a n a b b r e v i a t i o n ; n o t e v e r y a b b r e v i a t i o n i s a n a c r o n y m a cr o n y m

15 p.

By 1943, the term acronym had been used in English to recognize abbreviations (and contractions of phrases) that were pronounced as words. For example, the army offense of being absent without official leaves was abbreviated to “A.W.O.L.” in reports, but when pronounced as a word (‘awol’), it became an acronym. While initial letters are commonly used to form an acronym, the original definition was a word made from the initial letters or syllables of other words, for example UNIVAC from UNIVersal Automatic Computer.

In English, acronyms pronounced as words may be a 20th century phenomenon. Linguist David Wilton in Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends claims that “forming words from acronyms is a distinctly twentieth (and now twenty-first) century phenomenon. There is only one known pre-twentieth-century [English] word with an acronymic origin and it was in vogue for only a short time in 1886. The word is colinderies or colinda, an acronym for the Colonial and Indian Exposition held in London in that year.” However, although acronymic words seem not to have been employed in general vocabulary before the 20th century (as Wilton points out), the concept of their formation is treated as effortlessly understood (and evidently not novel) in a Poe story of the 1830s, “How to Write a Blackwood Article”, which includes the contrived acronym P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H.

a.m. (from latin ante meridiem, “before noon”) and p.m. (from latin post meridiem, “after noon”).

O.K. a term of disputed origin, dating back at least to the early 19th century, now used around the world.

P. R . E .T.T.Y. B . L . U . E . B . A .T. C . H .

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c u r r e n t

Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms; some well-known examples from the United States are among the “alphabet agencies” (also jokingly referred to as “alphabet soup”) created by Franklin D. Roosevelt under the New Deal. BusineWss and industry also are prolific coiners of acronyms. The rapid advance of science and technology in recent centuries seems to be an underlying force driving the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter,

u s e

the term acronym is the name for a word from the first letters of

each word in a series

of words. attestations

for “akronym” in aerman are known from 1921, and for “acronym” in english from 1940.

macintosh

-

most applications crash if not , the operating system hangs . microsoft

-

most intelligent customers realize our software only fools teenagers .

e v e r y a c r o n y m i s a n a b b r e v i a t i o n ; n o t e v e r y a b b r e v i a t i o n i s a n a c r o n y m a cr o n y m

17 p.

g

, it`s o k !

hey

more manageable names. One representative example, from the U.S. Navy, is COMCRUDESPAC, which stands for commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific; it’s also seen as “ComCruDesPac”.

“YABA-compatible” (where YABA stands for “yet another bloody acronym”) is used to mean that a term’s acronym can be pronounced but is not an offensive word (e.g., “When choosing a new name, be sure it is “YABA-compatible”).

The use of acronyms has been further popularized with the emergence of Short Message Systems (SMS). To fit messages into the 160-character limit of SMS, acronyms such as

The use of acronyms has been further popularized with the emergence of Short Message Systems (SMS).

so

l o l . . . !

“GF” (girl friend), “LOL” (laughing out loud), and “DL” (download or down low) have been popularized into the mainstream. Although prescriptivist disdain for such neologism is fashionable, and can be useful when the goal is protecting message receivers from crypticness, it is scientifically groundless when couched as preserving the “purity” or “legitimacy” of language; this neologism is merely the latest instance of a perennial linguistic principle — the same one that in the 19th century prompted the aforementioned abbreviation of corporation names in places where space for writing was limited (e.g., ticker tape, newspaper column inches).

y u p p i e

backronyms a backronym (or bacronym) is a phrase that is constructed “after the fact” from a previously existing word. for example, the novelist and critic anthony burgess once proposed that the word “book” ought to stand for “box of org a n i z e d k n o w l e d g e .” a c l a s sic real-world example of this in action is the name of the predecessor to the apple macintosh, the apple lisa, which was said to refer to “local integrated s o f t w a r e a r c h i t e c t u r e ”, but steve jobs’ daughter, born 1978, was named lisa.

e v e r y a c r o n y m i s a n a b b r e v i a t i o n ; n o t e v e r y a b b r e v i a t i o n i s a n a c r o n y m a cr o n y m

p.

19

w c u w t ela n i g tk w tm. wtf?

tps.omg.lol.tmi. wilco.rotfl.std. bff.ceo.cio.sto. sfo.coo.clo.vp. svp.kiss.dab.mad. n e d.p o ets .y u ppie.pumpie.filth. isaf.sfa.bbb.tmi.

tps.omg.lol .t m i .w i lc o. rotfl.std.bf f. c e o . c i o . sto.sfo.coo .c lo.v p. s v p. . omg kis kiss. s . d a b . m a d . n e d . p o wteft.ะดั ะด s . y u p p i e . p u m p i e . f i lt h . i s a f. s f a . b b b .t m i . tps.omg.lol .t m i .w i lc o. rotfl.std.bf f. c e o . c i o . sto.sfo.coo .c lo.v p. s v p. kiss.dab.mad .ned.poe t s .y u p p i e . p umpie. f i lt h . i s a f. s f a . b b b .t m i .

wtf ?

bb. tmi. tps. g. lol. tmi. wilco. r o t f l . s td. bff. ceo. cio. sto o. coo. clo. vp. svp . . k is s . d a b . m a d . n p tps. omg. lol. tmi. ed. poets. w il c o . rotfl. std. bff. ce . sto. sfo. coo. clo o. . v p . s v p . k is s. dab. mad. ned. ets. yuppie. pumpie . g. lol. tmi. wilco. r filth. isaf. sfa. bbb. tmi. tps. o. coo. clo. vp. svp otfl. std. bff. ceo. cio. sto. p When did we sta . kiss. dab. mad. ned. poets. l letters? Lane Grt speaking in sets of capthe acronym andreene looks into the rise hen did we start its sibling the initialism speaking in sets o letters? Lane Gre f capie n e l o o ks into the rise the acronym and hen did we start its sibling the initialism speaking in sets o letters? Lane Gre f capie n e looks into the ris the acronym and e it s s ib l in g t h e initialism hen did we start s p e a k ing in sets of cap letters? Lane Gre ie n e l o o k s in t o the rise he acronym and it s s ibling the initialis hen did we start m s p e a k in g in sets of capiletters? Lane Gre he acronym and itene looks into the rise s sibling the initia lism ...

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L a n e Gr to the rise of t h e a c r o n y m a n d its alism ... When did w e s t a r t s p e a k in g i al letters? Lane G r e e n e l ook s in to he acronym a n d it s s ib l in g t h e initia we start speakin g in s e t s o f c a p ita ne Greene look s in t o t h e r is e of the

... etc

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

23

omg, etc

p.

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters? the rise of the acronym and its sibling the initialism...

Perhaps the perfect modern movie is the cult classic “Office Space”. The anti-hero, Peter, begins his working day with a dressing-down from a droning boss about forgetting to put the cover-sheets on his TPS reports. We never find out what a TPS report is. Nor do we have to; the name alone tells us all we need to know about the life seeping out of Peter’s days, three capital letters at a time.

Acronyms have become so prevalent that they suffer what anything does when coined without end: devaluation. “Oh, my God” still packs quite a punch in the right circumstances.

“OMG”, by contrast, is barely effective as a plaything any more. (“OMG he’s cute.” “OMG is it ten already?”) LOL began life as “laughing out

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w e neve r f i n d o u t w h at a t ps re po rt is . nor d o w e h av e t o ; t h e n am e a lone t e l l s u s al l w e n e e d t o k n o w : th r ee capi t al l e t t e rs at a t i m e .

hysterically laughing out loud and rolling around while clapping hands and wetting my pants . sar

Now, lol means “you just said something so amusing my lip curled for a moment there.�

-

smart as remark . wb

-

welcome back .

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

25 p.

loud”, a way for internetchatterers to explain a long pause in typing. Now, LOL means “you just said something so amusing my lip curled for a moment there.” And how many BFFs will truly be best friends forever? Teens, with their habit of bleaching once-mighty words (from “awesome” to “fantastic”), can quickly render a coinage banal.

The kids are not ruining the language, though. Grown-ups play the same inflationary game. Walk into any business and a cloud of three-lettered titles surrounds you. The one who used to be just the boss, or the managing director, now styles himself the CEO, for chief

wcuwtelanigtkwtm

-

who came up with those eleven letter acronyms , nobody is going to know what they mean . hh

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holding hands . h 8

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hate . mil

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mother in law .

-

:

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

27 p.

-lol ! executive officer. This alone would be one thing , but it turned into a viral infection: CIO, CTO, CFO, COO, CLO, and so on, for what used to be the heads of technology, finance and operations, and the company lawyer. The so-called C-suite is an allegedly prestigious club, but whither prestige as its ranks swell? Throw in the VPs and SVPs who swarm all over American offices — not just vice-presidents, but senior ones — and everyone is a manager. A study of Linked-In, the networking site, found the number of C- and VP-level members growing three to four times faster than the membership overall. Who, then, is managed any more?

A study of Linked-In, the networking site, found the number of C- and VP-level members growing three to four times faster than the membership overall. Who, then, is managed any more?

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No one knows what the future of technology holds, but we can be

confident it will arrive in a swirl of capital letters.

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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omg, etc

29 p.

“Fuck” isn’t short for “for unlawful carnal knowledge”, “posh” has nothing to do with “port out,

- f y i they`rebffs..!

names begged for a shorthand: when the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Works Progress Administration were being rushed out of the door, it was natural to dub them the TVA and the WPA. There may have been another temptation as well. The use of letters as symbols began with the physical sciences: Jons Jacob Berzelius

swat

-

shoot without any thinking .

f dea

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don ` t expect anything . aaaa

-

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

anti - acronym association of america . bff

omg, etc

31 p.

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If acronyms meant trying to define something so it could be controlled, this was especially tempting in medicine.

-

best friend forever . doc

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day - of coordinator . mob

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mother of the bride . l 8 r

-

later

a m e r i c a

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a r m y

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l a m e r s

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had invented the one- and two-letter system for the chemical elements in 1813, and physicists had unlocked the secrets of the universe with insights from F=MA to E=MC. By analogy, perhaps, something that had an acronym felt scientific and controllable, tempting to government planners in the the chaotic world of the mid-20th century. Enter the FBI to police the country, the CIA to spy on others, and the SEC to wrestle with financial markets.

If acronyms meant trying to define something so it could be controlled, this was especially tempting in medicine. Diseases, physical and mental, used to get curt, Germanic names: mumps, measles, madness. (When my paediatrician told me my son had croup, I felt transported to a mud-and-thatch hut in medieval Europe.) But as science progressed, the ailments began to get more Latin- and Greek-derived names: typhoid, cholera, mania, melancholy. Then the late-20th century version of this trend came along: stringing together a long series of polysyllables to describe an illness — acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and so on. It’s only natural that these would become AIDS and COPD. If croup were discovered today, its lovable monosyllable would have no chance: it would be called acute laryngeal irritation disorder or ALID. At the same time, clever marketing people seized the chance to get into the medical, or quasi-medical acronym game. Having a hard time getting men to talk to their doctor about certain boudoir-related issues? A clever twostep solves the problem: dub it “erectile dysfunction”, and then since nobody wants to say that either, “ED”. Before you know it, celebrities are advertising your medication.

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

33 p.

A c r o n y m s u i t o u s e v e n

h a v e

t h a t

w h e r e

w e

b e c o m e l o o k

t h e y

s o

f o r

d o n ’ t

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e x i s t .

w a s t e d m o n e y b i g

w i f e m y b o u g h t The principle of inflation applies here too, though. When I first saw an advertisement promising treatment for “restless leg syndrome, or RLS”, I thought “now they’re just making it up,” trying to sell drugs. It turns out that RLS is a real thing, also known as Wittmaack-Ekbom’s syndrome (as usual, after two

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

35

m o n e y

w a s t e d

p.

w i f e

b o u g h t

m y

b i g

w i f e

bmw m y

bmw

-

seven crappy hours of our life . class

bmw

clever marketing people seized the chance to get into the medi-

b o u g h t school

At the same time,

cal, or quasi-medical acronym game.

b i g

-

m o n e y

w a s t e d

come late and start sleeping . finals

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fuck , i never actually learned shit . wtf

-

where ` s the food . l 2 r

-

learn to read .

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b l a m e

i n t e r n a t i o n a l

m i c r o s o f t

b u s i n e s s

m a c h i n e s

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When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

37 p.

Psychology is another realm where many are not convinced that acronymic new “syndromes” and “disorders” are real.

m

of its discoverers). The names of a German and a Swedish scientist seem to me to give a lot more solidity to the syndrome than that triad of capital letters.

Psychology is another realm where many are not convinced that acronymic new “syndromes” and “disorders” are real. No one is insane any more, or even eccentric, or highly strung; they have BPD or OCD (borderline personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder). And it’s tempting to think that we might be over-medicalising kids when we talk about their ODD (oppositional-defiant disorder) and ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). In the old days, conservatives

ibm

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laser

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b o u g h t

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light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation . oldsmobile

-

overpriced , leisurely driven sedan made of buick ’ s irregular leftover . sec

-

second .

a lie..! f o r

y o u r

i n f o r m a t i o n

- f y i that`s

we had a different label for these kids — “badly behaved” — and we treated their condition with a good hard swat. The grumpy reaction against acronymic inflation may be making us ignore real advances in psychology, throwing the scientific baby out with the alphabet-filled bathwater.

The conservative anti-acronym crusader may grind to a halt when considering the business world, which is a long-standing source of acronymy. In 1901 the National Biscuit Company sought a trademark for a new short form of its name — Nabisco. The “co” trend took off, especially with oil companies (Texaco, Conoco, Sunoco), using a different kind of acronym, one that pulls together first syllables, not just letters. But the rise of the initialism and acronym proper were not far off; the stock-ticker and other space-compressed media did not cause, but helped accelerate, the trend towards shorter names. The century-long process that gave birth to IBM, GE and AT&T has culminated with many companies preferring not to be known by their original names. IBM may still do international business but it no longer makes most of its money selling machines. GE does so much more than

f yi

-

f o r

y o u r

i n f o r m a t i o n

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

39

letters at a time.

know: three capital

us all we need to

name alone tells

we have to; the

report is. Nor do

out what a tps

We never find

p.

Acronyms have become so prevalent that they suffer what anything does when coined without end: devaluation.

simca

-

sitting in my chair amused . w 8 ing

-

waiting . volvo

-

very odd looking vehicle owners . usafu

-

un - serviceable , all fucked up . taft

-

that ’ s a frightening thought

d a r n

f u n n y

P o r t a b l e

p r e t t y

F o r m a t

d

D o c u m e n t

-she`s p ...ŃŽ!

The conservative anti-acronym crusader may grind to a halt when considering the business world, which is a long-standing source of acronymy.

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

41 p.

electronics that it rarely refers to itself as General Electric. AT&T would prefer you forget the “telegraph” in its name, though American iPhone users might prefer a telegraph to the much-derided voice service bundled with their handset by AT&T. The desire to shed an old association goes doubly for the second word in Kentucky Fried Chicken, now served up by a company called KFC. God bless Radio Shack for resisting the trend. But how long before they become RS.com?

There’s a whiff of the American about many acronyms. This may be the reason that a Chinese ministry, which went unnamed in press reports, quietly told media outlets to stop using roman-letter acronyms; F1 (Formula One

tanstaasq

-

there ain ’ t no such thing as a stupid question . tiasirgooh

-

this internet acronym shit is really getting out of hand . key

-

keep extending yourself .

i. . c ab. p. k i lc tm d v oo . w s c . b . i . p. m bb iss i. sfo . k l. t fa . . p tm o s o v . l t . s b . s f g . p. bb sa o. cio . v . om fa . . o s s l o p . st c e . t o f i c . p a c f. en o. . is c oo . yu e h s . c t t Wh o l e . f i p f o s f . . yu bf . p pie ane d. sto ts.

L m t e . s u ? o io s p . p l. g . c ter ed. pie t otf p n lin e r . u b l i . d y s a . s co al of ets b. m pit d it wil a a n . d ts c i a . e m s f s m t o y is n on the ol. p. k g i r ets f v n s c i s o a e ak in v p. the ris we spe ng f i e lo. d t k o i h r a e t d ta o ris l spe e s hen int he rt w W t s ene . e o . d . i r t d G m l ook s in ne lis ne a hen a e L i W e ? r ... init ers e G e t sm n i t h a l e t L l a ing rs? ta l l i e b p t i s ca let its of s d n et m a in s g kin pea

bs f

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y o u r i n f o r m a t i o n , i s s * h i t . . . !

motor racing) and the NBA (America’s National Basketball Association) were no longer to be so called in the columns of Chinese newspapers. But even the mighty Chinese government can only do so much; CCTV, the statecontrolled Chinese Central Television, still has a large Roman “CCTV” in its logo, perhaps

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

43 p.

But even the mighty Chinese government can only do so much; CCTV, the state-controlled Chinese Central Television, still has a large Roman “CCTV� in its logo,

-t hfa y i t `s b s . . . !

key

-

knowledge empowers you . abc

-

always be careful . team

-

together each achieves more . tip

-

to insure promptness . now

-

no opportunity wasted . tm

-

trust me .

b f f

because its web address consists of those letters, not the Chinese characters, which cannot be used in web addresses.

There is nothing inherently American, or even Anglo-phone, about acronyms. Chinese itself has them, despite its remarkable character-based writing system. Many words consist of more than one character, and Chinese acronyms will use one character from each word (often, but not always, the first one). But of course acronyms are more suited to alphabets. The fish became a Christian symbol largely because the Greek word for it, ichthos, is an acronym for iesous christos theou ouios soter, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour�. The Jews enjoyed making acronyms too, and even

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

45 p.

o

l

l

laughing out loud

ac. cpu. a

wol. odd. goc. wilco. ceo

awol. odd. goc.

bff . univac. cpu. std. univ

eo. std. univac. cpu.

ac. cpuWe . awonever find l. odd. goc wilco. c out what a TPS report is. Nor do we have to; the name alone tells us all we need to know: three capital letters at a time.

. std. univ

There is nothing inherently American, or even Anglo-phone, about acronyms. Chinese itself has them, despite its remarkable character-based writing system.

s ms :

a:

-b: dF b :

ned

-

non - educated delinquent . poets

-

W C T Y B T W H T K Y . . .

-

piss of early , tomorrow ` s saturday . pumpie

?

-

previously upwardly prat . filth

-

: )

failed in london , try hong kong . bs

-

big smile

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

omg, etc

47 p.

d i a lo g : a: what da f***? b: we could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you...

!

the name of the Bible is the tanakh, an acronym for torah nevi’im ketuvim, “Torah, prophets, writings”, the three main sections of the Hebrew Bible.

The proliferation of acronyms through texting seems particularly Anglophone. The standard term for a text in America is itself a set of capitals (SMS, short message service). Now other languages are following suit. In German, the initialism SMS has become an acronym proper, pronounced “zims”. It has also been made into a verb, smsen, so that it’s perfectly natural to say Ich habe ihr gesmst, “I texted her.”

The French too are playing with text-speak.

Though many will happily import LOL from English tout court, they may also write MDR, mort de rire, “dead from laughing”. And just as English texters can play with the rebus principle to write things like CUL8R (“see you later”), so the French have @+ (à plus, short for “see you later”) and OQP, occupé, “busy”.

This trend points to good news as we drown in ever more acronyms. They are a mere microcosm of language, sharing most of the properties of language generally. So just as the bureaucrats coin jargon, waffle and acronyms, the grunts and drones will continue to fight back against the plodding predictability of acronymic churn. And kids will continue to speed up the process by replacing anything that catches on too broadly — to the next generation, “LOL” could be about as groovy as “groovy” is today.

have a nice da y filth

-

failed in london , try hong kong . lombard

Slang initialisms and nonce-acronyms survive in the crowded marketplace of language because they fill a useful function. A SNAFU (situation normal: all fucked up) filled a void; it’s not just any screw-up, it’s the screw-up caused by some titleinflated CTO or SVP trying to impose TQM (total quality management) on his remaining subordinates. Soldiers, who have to face the reality of life and death on the battlefield along with the fact that they work for a giant bureaucracy, are a prolific source of subversive acronyms.

-

lots of money but a real dickhead . adidas

-

all day i dream about sport . tg

-

tiny gangster . gtg

-

got to go .

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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49 p.

h han

cpu. awol. odd. goc wilco. ceo. std. univac. cpu. awol. odd. goc

u. awol. odd. goc. wilco. ceo. std. univac.

The American military mindset that gave us CENTCOM (Central Command), NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) and NETWARCOM (Naval Network Warfare Command) has also come up with SNAFU and FUBAR (fucked up beyond all recognition). In the famous profile in Rolling Stone that led to Stanley McChrystal’s resignation as America’s commander in Afghanistan, some troops were quoted as mocking the non-Americans serving with them in theInternational Stabilisation Force for Afghanistan: ISAF, they said, really

o. ceo. std. univac. cpu. awol. odd. goc. wilco. ceo. std. univac. cp

.. wilco. univac. cpu. awol. odd. goc. wilc

w c u

wtf ?

tmi

-

too much information . wilco

-

will comply . rotfl

-

rolling on the floor laughing . kiss

-

keep it simple stupid . mad

-

mutually assured destruction .

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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51 p.

stood for “I suck at fighting”. Soldiers will subvert acronyms as long as superiors think they can drive off the fog of war with the seductive quasi-certainty of the caps-lock key.

Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with acronyms. They may be a quintessentially modern annoyance, fooling us into thinking we have a

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k n o w

w h a t

n o b o d y

t h e y

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greater grip on life’s complexities than we really do. But that goes hand in hand with the wonders of the modern world: I’ll take COPD and modern drugs over tuberculosis in 1910 any day. Acronyms are tools, no better or worse than the people who enliven or burden our lives with them.

w i n

o r

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When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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55 p.

Men forced into proximity with each other will find ribald solace in competitive, vulgar inventions which mimic strait-laced constructions such as adc (aide de camp), goc (general officer commanding), awol (absent without leave), etc.

THE

MAR C H

OF

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ETA is an acronym. ETA is also an initialism. The first is a two-syllable word, Etta. It stands for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom). The second is three distinct letters: Ee Tee Ay, Estimated Time (of) Arrival. What these near-twins have in common is that they are both abbreviations and of military origin.

Take another acronym and initialism: OGS (Oh Gee Ess) and GOPWO (Gop-wo), both British coinages of the second world war. Conscripts soon learn to behave with the doubtful decorum of professional soldiers. Men forced into proximity with each other will find ribald solace in competitive, vulgar inventions which mimic strait-laced constructions such as ADC (aide de camp), GOC (general officer commanding), AWOL (absent without leave),

tmiktliu

-

the more i know , the less i understand . lotus

-

lots of trouble usually serious . aok

-

asleep on keyboard . ask

-

always sek knowledge . lg

-

let ` s go .

h e r e

c o m e s

omg...

P s y c h o l o g y i s a n o t h e r r e a l m w h e r e m a n y a r e n o t c o n v i n c e d t h a t a c r o n y m i c n e w “ s y n d r o m e s ” a n d “ d i s o r d e r s ” a r e r e a l .

moth

-

humorous collectibles forum variation on member of the month . kiss

-

keep it super simple . fear

-

forget everything and run . ibb

- i`ll

be back .

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

g

omg, etc

57 p.

If acronyms meant trying to define

something so it could be controlled, this

was especially tempting in medicine.

etc. The pithiest or most brutal of these inventions will stick. Thus a GOPWO, a grossly over-promoted warrant officer: one who began as a private and went up through the non-commissioned ranks rather than graduating from Sandhurst or similar. These days, it means grossly over-priced web operator.

In post-war British society, fraught with marginal snobberies, an officer’s background remained an object of scrutiny. The civilian female nearequivalent of a GOPWO was a counter-jumper, a shop assistant supposedly on the qui vive for a rich male customer. OGS might have been just the ticket for her. In the war, an officer’s ground sheet was a jocularly misogynistic epithet for an opportunistic sexual partner in uniform — a member of the WRAC (Women’s Royal Army Corps), the ATS

iartpfwtsiowim

-

(Auxiliary Territorial Service) or the WLA (Women’s Land Army). It is a truism that the development of everything from medicines to meteorology has depended on the prosecution of wars. This version of events flatters our paranoia, our fearful fondness of sombre forces. And the paraphernalia of armed conflict—secrecy, adrenalin, ruthlessness, dirty tricks, machismo, gadgets — can exert an attraction on those who have never known war. Its allure overlooks the actuality of boredom and body bags.

The further we are from military life, the more seductive its supposed traits. A corporation’s ends will most probably be different from the armed forces’— less killing, for instance. But the means are there to be aped, the tics to be imitated: the speed, the modernity, the purposefulness, the can-do. Above all, the language.

i am repeating this parrot - fashion without the slightest idea of what it means . focus

-

follow one course until successeful . frog

-

fully rely on god .

It s a y s : t h in k p o s it iv e .

It s a y s it loudly.

omg, etc

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

59

In the corporate world (CoWo), as in the military, curtness has come to equal efficiency. Just add up all those saved seconds. They grow into minutes, hours, days. It saves breath, tons of the stuff, which can be kept for achieving goals. It says: think positive. It says it loudly.

Curtness has been greedily adopted by CoWo via the blight of managerialism, the faith (no other word will do) that all enterprises are susceptible to the same theoretical models of management. Thus a trainee dog-food executive — let us call him Crozier — can rise through media sales, advertising,

sms:

shi

sure happy it`s thursday

p.

hyunday

-

hope you understand nothing ’ s driveable and inexpensive . mile

-

maximum impact , little effort . gasp

-

go away , silly person . gbu

-

god bless you .

u? r w o -hi, h -y

. u? k o . yy..

-shit

:)

6? t a r -cul8

t -s -love -ilu2

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sports administration and public utilities to run a broadcaster. This quasi-hieratic caste pretends to be post-ideological yet believes in a catechism of attributes: conformism, seizure of power, measurable results (of immeasurable phenomena), service delivery, primacy of economic performance, contempt for non-vocational learning, justifiable means, out-sourcery, IRP (inhuman resource patterning), BPD (best practice diagnostics).

Managerialism’s grip on our governance is a consequence of the growth of a professionally political class which has little experience of anything other than committees, “research�, disinformation and slogan-creation, aka (also known as)

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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61 p.

There is nothing inherently

s w e e tAmerican, or even y o u n gAnglo-phone, about t h in gacronyms. Chinese itself has them, despite its remarkable character-based writing system.

goat

-

greatest of all time . draw

-

dignity and respet at work . time

-

tears in my eyes . day

-

do anything yourself . hope

-

helping others pursue excellence .

branding. A desire that the public sector should not only mimic the private sector but cohabit with it has led to a reliance on technocratic managerialism.

Welcome to the bankrupt world of the PFI (private finance initiative) and the PPP (public-private partnership). The affectless jargon of the managers is a sort of trahison des clercs by linguistic means. Like Latin 800 years ago, it is the language of the new masters.

There is nothing inherently Am erican, or even Anglo-phone, about acronyms. Chinese itself has them, despite its remarkable characterbased writing system.

sos

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63

someone special

p.

If acronyms meant trying to define something so it could be controlled, this was especially tempting in medicine.

sam e ol d sh it

s a v e o u r s o u l s s a v e o u r s h i p

l i n g s i b

r o v e

r l d e u o s h

s o s

g p r

r p g

r o l e

p l a y i n g

g a m e

really ic pathet gamer

Real slang is base poetry. The coinages of football terraces, crack dens, stoops, cottages, barracks and bars are vital. Like life itself they are grimly funny, wounding, unfair, harrowing, disrespectful. They have no place in the po-faced world of spreadsheets, bullet points, Cranfield, matrix standards, trunk-branch-tag, helicopter views, USW (und so weiter). Slang is joyfully dystopian. It caricatures and exaggerates the imperfections of an already imperfect world.

It goes without saying that jargon, of which acronyms and initialisms are important subsets, is neither joyful nor dystopian. It aspires instead to that most lethally infantile of programmes, the pre

bos

- big orange switch

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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65 p.

r o c k e t

chevrolet

-

p r o p e l l e d

can hear every valve rap on long extended trips . dodge

g r e n a d e

-

drips oil , drops grease everywhere . faak

-

falling asleep at keyboard . ff

-

french fry .

s m i li n g

s w e e t ly

s o

s l e e p y

ssss

When did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

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67

going mainstream it has been re-reversed, so the word in the banlieue is now reub. In 2005 the French contrarian Alain Finkielkraut suggested that BBB should mean black black black. His almost accurate observation infuriated the antiracism establishment, whose censoriousness is more appropriate to that of a totalitarian dictatorship than a liberal democracy. (France is just as shackled by PC as Britain, though it sulks and agonises more before accepting its strictures.)

s i r us a it e

scription of the conditions of a better world, a tidier place, the playground of tyrants. One agency of such a programme, the NSDAP (National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, the German Workers’ National Socialist Party), was a prodigious creator of acronymic entities, the most notorious of them the morally squalid apparatus of state terror, the GESTAPO (Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police).

The reckless and the suicidal apart, no subject of such a regime would have dared to re-engineer an acronym to stand for something entirely different, in the way that the American military had the cheek to adapt SFA, so that sweet fuck all turned into security fault analysis.

Before the 2006 World Cup, the French football team was routinely described in an excess of multiracial smugness as BBB (bey bey bey: blanc, black, Beur-white, black, Arab). Beur is verlan, back slang-à l’envers — for Arab, though since

s im o n a

s o m e th i ng

s tu p i d

p.

tmi

t o o

m u c h

i n f o r m a t i o n

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i n d e e d

m o n d a y

t o m m o r o w

p.

This fuss over very little shows that acronyms and initialisms are even less neutral than other sorts of word. They are fluid, prone to lurches in meaning: it took a generation for the epithet “piss artist” to move from signifying a braggart to a drunkard. It took however long it takes to say “black” three times to shatter a nation’s delusion. All words can be weapons, and acronyms are looser cannons than most.

tmi

-

too much information . wilco

-

will comply . rotfl

-

rolling on the floor laughing . kiss

-

keep it simple stupid . omg

-

one man gand . wtf

-

why the face ?

omg, etc.

des nathan Mea Greene, Jo au th or Lane ė na Sirusait de si gn Simo itė ona sirusa ar tw or k Sim NA SIRUSAITĖ ed it or SIMO nas utis vasiliū te ac he r Kęst s. r 2013/ 8 ye ar /s em es te spauda” ab “greita pr in te d by u copy ci rc ul at io n 1

© simona sirusaitė, 2013 © graphics department of vilnius academy of art, 2013

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