Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 111
ESCAPE Weekly
Aug. 27 - Sept. 2, 2010 – 6
Beware the acro-nymphs
Pretty soon we’ll only use CAPITAL LETTERS
T
he written word, my friends, is
volume only stands out if it is used
suffering from a two-pronged
sparingly, such as in “Oh no you
attack — and it’s not being
DI’N’T!”
assaulted by bad grammar, misspelling or
If everything is written in capital letters,
even street slang — it’s taking
it merely means the writer
a mugging from the formerlyis lazy and annoying. “SO,
benign capital letter.
MOM, THAT ABOUT
And we must stand up
WRAPS IT UP FROM
now and chop ’em down.
HERE. HOPE YOU ARE
In a previous rant
FEELING WELL. I’LL
WRITE AGAIN SOON.”
on these pages (or an
“educational perusal,” as I
It’s downright hard on the
like to view them), I took
reader’s eyes and, you know,
Jim Walker
shots at writing in ALL
my delicate sensibilities, in
Don’t Take Me Seriously particular.
CAPS as a form of excess
“volume”— in that it is the
So we’ve got the capsprint equivalent of shouting,
from-laziness assault, which
which is always rude.
is enough to deal with. But while we’ve
However, this upper-case-as-highbeen struggling with that, the other army
of the caps-invasion has been insinuating
itself in our language …
… ACRONYMS.
“Acronym: a word formed from the
initials or other parts of several words, e.g.
!.!')%")!/'
‘NATO,’ from the initial letters of ‘North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.’”
0# "&'. *$/,)#!'!)(123&+
Acronyms are pounding us from every
/00120345657300458/5$
direction these days, as the “acro-nymphs”
!"#!"$%%&'!
or “short-form fairies” (ANs or SFFs,
#
if you will) out there wave their magic
')
() "&'(
wands and get “creative.” Again, this is
probably done out of laziness, as no one
wants to write, for example, “Friends
%&''")
of the Royal Edwardian Ascenders of
Kilimanjaro Society” over and over again
( &'
when “FREAKS” will suffice.
*')+'!$*&''")
On the other hand, the acro-nymphs
would each rather their particular
() &',
acronym stand out and be as memorable
%),'!)'&''")
as possible — even if it requires altering
the original name sequence a little
to make it so. And, sometimes, this
- &'
characteristic makes the acronym worth
! "
keeping, in spite of it botching up the look
of things.
For example, the Fans of Furry Felines
would
be FFFs, which, when you say
" '')
" % " &'!
)&
* ) +) )' )
&)
#') -
Photo illustration by Jim Walker
Beware the acro-nymphs (aka short-form fairies). They will soon turn everything into capital letters.
it, sounds like a gas problem. And, the
speaking of it certainly doesn’t carry
across a room well. (Though it does sound
a bit like an angry cat.)
Substituting words with similar
meaning in their acronym, these folks
might become Friends with Utter Respect
for Basic Attraction to Lazy Lickers, or
FURBALLs, which is definitely going to
stick in the public throat, so to speak.
Old Guys with Harleys, OGH, isn’t
quite memorable enough, so substituting,
we get Oldsters Under Care in Hospitals,
or OUCH.
Soccer Dads, or SDs, is pretty much
meaningless as an acronym, but comes
much more into focus as SHOUT, or
Soccer “Helpers” Only Upset Team.
Suburban Mothers Driving Sport
Utility Vehicles is much easier to visualize
as Women Having Overreached Ability,
or WHOA.
Smokers Who Toss Cigarettes from
Cars means nothing as SWTCC,
but swapping out to Bothersome
Underachievers and Totally Talentless
Slobs … well it has no directly related
meaning, but they deserve to be called
BUTTS.
And, finally, we’ve got the National
Dyslexia Association, better known as
DNA. (Though I wouldn’t trust this.)
You can probably come up with your
own interesting acronyms, but the point is
there are just too many of them, and more
coming all the time.
So let’s all become members of
AAAAAAA, the All American
Association Against Acronym Abuse
Anonymous, as well as its parent
organization, of course, the Professional
Riters Opposing the Zany Abuse of
Capitals, or PROZAC.
Jim Walker’s opinions do not necessarily
represent those of Escape or The Signal. He
can be reached at jwalker@the-signal.com.
