THE ACRONYMIC WORLD

When I was a child, acronyms were scarce, but those that existed were easily identifiable and meaningful. USA stood for our country, FBI stood for national law enforcement and the Untouchables, and there were a substantial number of other governmental acronyms ranging from FAA and FCC to FDA and IRS. Most of those beginning with “F” had something to do with the Federal government, and the few Federal acronyms that did not begin with F (Like IRS) were sort of mysterious sounding things like OSS.

With the onset and progress of the Second World War, we began to hear quasi or semi governmental terms like AWOL, SNAFU, KILROY, SOS, SHAEF (The military went acronym crazy before almost anyone else, and an exhaustive list of military acronyms would take pages and pages. I have even found acronyms in military papers that were acronyms for combinations of other acronyms.)

I spent about half of my freshman year in college working in the official government documents repository (which, has probably been renamed O GOD R by now) in the college library and woke up one time in the middle of the night after dreaming I was doing the backstroke through waves of government acronyms..

With all this acronymic history one would think I could acclimate to the surging crop of acronyms. I understand CPR, after all I once was a qualified WSI (water safety instructor) but my mind went into an acronym fry the other evening watching television. One of the commercials advertised a medicine for URD, and I was almost through the commercial before I realized that he was talking about the common cold. (I presume that URD stands for upper respiratory distress or disease, or something like that). Almost every physical status now has an acronym. What we called croup, and/or emphysema or any ONE of the diseases that made one’s breathing difficult has now become COPD. What was once called male impotence has now become ED (for erectile disfunction, in itself a difficult phrase to parse without at least a raised eyebrow). I once spent a rather entertaining half hour imagining other acronyms for that syndrome. I came up with PP, DJ, LJ, SP, FRANK, BA, and a variety of others. The actual terminology for each of these I will leave to your imagination except for one term. I still resent the writer on the cop TV show who decided to rename the penis with my surname.

Speaking of cop shows and acronyms if the California Highway Patrolman is a CHIP, what is an Idaho Highway Patrolman, an IHIP? (I can hear it now, the motorcycle patrolman hitting on the sweet young thing by telling her “I HIP”. Or the Utah patrolman UHIP (He better be prepared either to be musical or duck—at least it wouldn't be UHIPS or he couldn’t duck fast enough.) Or if we want to deal with political correctness did you realize that Wisconsin, Washington, and Wyoming all have their streets guarded by WHIPs?

I can’t remember all of the acronyms I heard this week in television commercials but I heard an acronym for baldness (or at least hair loss), obesity (I am still sensitive about that term itself, though as I slowly seem to be losing weight my sensitivity lessens.) Almost every student in every classroom now has his or her own acronym. ADD, ADHD, G&T, and I even heard, on the Learning Channel, I believe, and acronym for a normal student, but I can’t remember what it was. (One of the blessings and curses of Coothood – not an acronym- is selective memory.) I have come to the conclusion that I really can’t fight the acronymic explosion in our current language. It would be hypocritical to do so since I still have cards that list my name followed by BA, MFA. PhD, and since one of my children working for the military is in charge of ITAM (I don’t have a clue,) at a military base, but I wouldn’t want the army to eliminate that acronymic organization because of my protest. She still has house payments to make.

Though I can’t do away with the acronym completely, I have made a decision that I will not, under any circumances buy a product that is identified in a television (or other) commercial with an acronym. Maybe that small gesture can lead to a stronger measure, though my MD, or my LLD will probably give me some instruction that will require me to violate that principle