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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Critical Shortage Looming!
Americans are remarkable in their adaptability. We've proved capable of devising substitutes for just about anything you could name. The magnificent story of the crisis onboard Apollo XIII, when the carbon dioxide filters became saturated and no socket-compatible replacements were available, bears testimony to Americans' talent for wedging the square peg into a round hole when the need arises.
But some shortages cannot be easily remedied, because their basis is fixed by nature. Your Curmudgeon speaks today of the looming crisis in acronyms.
We may trace the great importance of Acronym Space to the early part of the Twentieth Century, when the first of the "alphabet agencies" were born. First came the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA. Shortly thereafter we had the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco, or BAT (eventually to become BATF, or "F Troop"). When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Recovery Administration (NRA) followed those agencies, it became clear that the three-letter acronym was to become a key feature of modern life.
But there are only so many three-letter acronyms to go around: a mere 263 == 17,576, if we eschew the dubious practice of "case mixing." When the Administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) started birthing agencies like tapeworms -- a considerable resemblance, no? -- the prospect of Acronym Space Saturation surged ominously forward.
Then non-governmental organizations joined the fun. AFL, CIO, DAR, AFT, NEA, Dow -- whoops, that's not an acronym, is it? -- ABA, and AMA are but a few such. Pretty soon it seemed horribly declasse to refer to anything by its name. If you didn't have a three-letter acronym, you simply didn't count. Ask JFK or LBJ.
The fatal development was the emergence of the digital computer. Every such machine possesses a "machine language:" a set of instructions, encoded as distinct numbers, that can be used to create programs. But people's memories are far less good at remembering the significance of large arrays of numbers than they are at remembering the significance of short groups of letters, so shortly after the computer arrived, we confronted assembly languages: encodings of the various instructions in a computer's machine language as three-letter acronyms.
Of course, different kinds of computer had different machine languages, and therefore different assembly languages. For anyone who had to program several different kinds of computer within a short span of time, it was hell. Your Curmudgeon could tell you stories...but this is Wednesday. Suffice it to say that the typical software artisan had trouble making it through the day without being clotheslined by acronymitis. Even the drive home could be a terrible trial, what with all the suggestive-looking letter combinations on license plates.
And thus it came to pass that Acronym Space -- at least the three-letter neighborhood thereof -- "filled up," and could bear no more additions. But American ingenuity was equal to that challenge: we went from acronyms of three letters to four. There, the space of 264 == 456,976 possible combinations seemed inexhaustible. And of course, there's always the five-letter realm beyond that, and the six-letter wilds, and so forth.
But a curious thing happened: the longer the acronyms grew, the more important it became to associate a word-like pronunciation with them. No one, for example, speaks of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) as "Enn Ay Are Ay Ell." The acronym is always pronounced as if it were a word. Indeed, sometimes the acronym is a recognizable word: consider the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), or the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT-UP), or Act Now to Stop War & End Racism (ANSWER). It could hardly be more obvious that the traditional use of an acronym as an acronym has given way to its new function as an alternate name.
This has profound and terrible implications. There may be lots of possible acronyms if one doesn't care about mnemonic quality or pronounceability, but with those two features factored in, the space shrinks dramatically. Why, at some unforeseeable time in the future, we might have to go back to calling things by their original names!
If you care about the conservation of Acronym Space, it's time to pitch in. Save your spelling errors, and those of your kids. Keep an eye out for defunct acronyms: ones that have fallen into disuse as the things they refer to have become obsolete. If you hear someone sneeze, cough, or grumble in an acronymically evocative way, write it down. (Extra credit for using lots of Js, Qs, and Zs.) Make a list of all these, and keep it ready to hand. When a friend or business colleague finds himself at a loss for an unused but suitable acronym, haul out your list and peruse it with him. It might be that just what he needs is on that list somewhere. Alternately, it might stimulate his imagination, allowing him to formulate the acronym he needs on his own. In either case, you'll be doing your bit for world peace.
And always remember: however great or small, an acronym is:
A
Concise
Reduction
Obliquely
Naming
Your
Meaning.
Or at least, it should be.
Comments
Recursive acronyms and acronyms within acronyms could also extend their lifespan, perhaps at the loss of clarity.
For example, if ACORN had a subgroup that worked closely with the NCDM (National Conference of Democratic Mayors), we could have the following:
ACORN
Coordinating
Overt
Rallies for
NCDMPosted by Liquid Egg Product on 11/18/2009 at 01:40 PM
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