Washington – Returning to the United States seven years in the past, I used to be puzzled how the Bureau of Land Management had seemingly grow to be concerned with race politics. Then I deciphered that the hashtag #BLM had taken on a brand new that means throughout my quarter century overseas: Black Lives Matter.
I used to be likewise confused when newscasters not too long ago started talking concerning the IRA – the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The abbreviation had spent a long time within the headlines representing the Irish Republican Army.
Then, there’s the non-public IRA, an acronym – generally pronounced eye-ruh – for a tax-advantaged Individual Retirement Account.
FILE – NRA Logo by way of Library of Congress.
Such recycling or duplications of initials is nothing new. The NRA – National Rifle Association – is continuously within the news amid the gun management debate. The abbreviation was simply as pervasive in Thirties America through the Great Depression. The NRA blue eagle emblem was displayed by corporations adhering to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labor codes of the National Recovery Administration.
At VOA, we stake our declare to the initials from the time of our first broadcast (in German) in 1942. We have been latecomers, having been preceded by the Volunteers of America, a philanthropic group originating in New York City in 1896.
Abbreviations or initialisms are handy shorthand, often fashioned from the preliminary letters of two or extra phrases. Acronyms technically are shortcuts pronounceable as phrases. Radar, for instance, comes from the Nineteen Forties expertise of radio route and ranging. That rang properly, resulting in the associated acronym for sound navigation and ranging: sonar. Also under the waterline: scuba (self-contained underwater respiration equipment).
‘Bad acronyms’
Joe Essid, Ph.D. (that suffix from the Latin, that means philosophiae physician), director of the Writing Center on the University of Richmond, notes “the military is full of bad acronyms.”
The acronym for the commander in chief of the U.S. Navy fleet (CINCUS – “sink us”) was retired after the Japanese did simply that at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Air Force proposed an area aircraft within the Sixties, the X-20 Dyna-Soar. That didn’t fly.
“I think one reason it got canceled was because it was called the dinosaur,” says Essid, whose personal surname has grow to be an acronym for prolonged service set identifier.
In World War II, American troopers hoping to keep away from being MIA (lacking in motion) or KIA (killed in motion) generally complained their gear or plans have been fubar – fouled up past all recognition. Except the primary phrase was not fouled, however an expletive. “FUBAR” in 2023 is the title of a Netflix action-comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Fubar’s twin from the identical period is snafu, which in well mannered firm means state of affairs regular all fouled up. During the battle, the U.S. Army formally took it in good humor and produced a sequence of tutorial cartoon shorts titled “Private Snafu.”
Educator and podcaster Mignon Fogarty (AKA Grammar Girl on social media) has combined emotions about all of the abbreviations.
“Acronyms are a great example of jargon – language that is wonderful shorthand for insiders, but that excludes everyone else. Acronyms aren’t bad in all situations, but when you’re an outsider, they’re quite off-putting,” she says.
Shortened names aren’t constant throughout languages. In English, OAS is used for the Organization of American States. But in most of these three dozen member nations, it is called the OEA, (La Organizacion de los Estados Americanos).
The worldwide group offering humanitarian medical help in battle and catastrophe zones was initially generally known as MSF: Medecins Sans Frontières. It now refers to itself in English as Doctors Without Borders, however DWB doesn’t appear to have caught on.
Similarly for the twin identities of Reporters Without Borders, which makes use of its French acronym RSF (Reporters sans frontières) even in English.
Speaking of the French, they do attempt to impose some technique to language insanity, resisting their phrases and acronyms from inundation by anglicisms. In English, there isn’t a equal of the Academie Francaise, and therefore no registry of acronyms.
“There’s no American academy of linguistic purity. That’s the strength of the English language,” in keeping with Essid. “It’s a malleable and imperfect tool.”
Any group, particular person or company can create their very own acronyms in English, hoping they acquire flight ASAP by RTITW (releasing them within the wild), which I simply made up.
Let us see if somebody will add it to the Acronym Finder.
The White House
As a White House correspondent, my lexicon overflowed with acronyms: POTUS (President of the United States), FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States) and VPOTUS (Vice President of the United States), whose ceremonial workplace just isn’t contained in the White House however subsequent door within the EEOB (Eisenhower Executive Office Building).
FILE – Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is being interviewed by VOA White House bureau chief Steve Herman, in Arlington, Virginia, June 17, 2019.
When I obtained too near POTUS or VPOTUS with my growth microphone, I obtained a stern look from a plainclothes agent of the PPD (Presidential Protective Division) of the united states (United States Secret Service).
Confusingly, PPD on the White House also can seek advice from a presidential coverage directive.
Really well-known twentieth century presidents grew to become historic initials beginning with FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), who was ultimately adopted by JFK (John F. Kennedy) and LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson). Johnson’s successor, Richard Milhous Nixon, the one U.S. president to resign, just isn’t immortalized as RMN.
With the election of the primary feminine vp, Kamala Harris, her husband, Douglas Emhoff, grew to become the primary SGOTUS (Second Gentleman of the United States).
FILE – Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff attend the lighting ceremony for the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse of the White House in Washington, Nov. 30, 2022.
And when a person ultimately assumes the normal FLOTUS position, he’ll be FGOTUS, though the media used that time period through the Obama administration to indicate White House resident Marian Robinson, mom of FLOTUS Michelle Obama, because the unofficial ‘first grandmother of the United States.’
‘Make the that means clear’
Grammarian Fogarty provides professional ideas for these using linguistic shorthand.
“When writing for a more general audience, context will also often make the meaning clear. MVP in a baseball story will obviously mean ‘most valuable player.’ But in a general business story, you may need to define MVP (minimum viable product) the first time you use it.”
She prefers to err on the aspect of warning and spell it out if there’s any doubt the viewers will not know the that means.
OK, (stated to originate from oll korrect, an alteration of all appropriate).
Forgarty’s suggestion is probably going good recommendation for a resume or cv (curriculum vitae).
Fred DeFilippo, for instance, went from the CIA to the CIA. The former government chef on the Central Intelligence Agency is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America.
Cellphone textual content messaging unleashed a torrent of abbreviations to cut back character depend: AFAIK (so far as I do know); BRB (be proper again); IDK (I do not know); MIRL (meet in actual life); NSFW (not secure for work); ROFL (rolling on the ground laughing), and TMI (an excessive amount of info).
“I try not to use them,” says Essid. “I don’t text a lot, I hate smartphones. I tend to communicate with email and in person. And so, I don’t tend to use these abbreviations and acronyms.”
Except in his pastime of beekeeping the place they appear to be buzzing throughout.
“A lot of them have to do with sex,” corresponding to JH for juvenile hormones, Essid explains.
Human youngsters with surging hormones are prolific customers of social messaging codes.
Before the arrival of fruit and vegetable emojis, initialisms have been created to KPC (maintain dad and mom clueless), corresponding to FWB (buddies with advantages); OC (open crib, that means no mum or dad might be residence) and TDTM (discuss soiled to me). Many extra examples are NSFW (not secure for work).
Early Christians beneath menace of persecution had the Latin initialism INRI (Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum – Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews). Perhaps it was not meant to obscure that means, moderately, to save lots of time carving wood crosses.
Are acronyms 2,000 years on so pervasive that editors ought to allow them to stand on their very own with out elaboration?
IDK, TBD. TTYL. LOL.
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Steve Herman
Steve Herman, previously White House Bureau Chief, is now VOA’s Chief National Correspondent.