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An acronym is an
abbreviation made from the initial letters of a term or phrase.
Acronyms are intended to facilitate communication and quick
understanding. They are too important to ignore in this modern
world.
A word to the
efficient is sufficient. But are we efficient enough to interpret
the true meaning of all the acronyms that are in circulation?
Furthermore, how do we unravel the mysteries of new acronyms,
which are proliferating like mushrooms every day? Acronyms are
convenient for communications to be sharp and swift. However, it’s
time we had a reliable source, (perhaps, a pocket size computer),
containing an accurate description of all the acronyms, which are
in day-to-day use.
Acronyms never
fail to fascinate me. It seems that the most creative people are
those who are engaged in the field of coining new acronyms. Let’s
consider the following, where their imaginations have indeed run
riot!
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ABCD =
Active Blood Collectors & Donors
ACE =
Attitude Changing Environment
ADAM =
Animated Dissection of Anatomy for Medicine
ASSIST =
Association for research in Sexology, Sex Information &
Sex Therapy
COBRA =
Clear Over Base Rapid Application (An automobile paint)
CRY = Child
Relief and You (A social service organization doing yeoman
service in
India)
FAST =
Flexible, Advanced, Shuttle-less Technology (Textile Weaving
looms)
FIRST =
Fully Integrated Road Safety Technology
FOREST =
Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco
(Should the chain-smokers, who ignore the health of others,
be exiled to the forest? No, on second thoughts, let the
plants and trees live – they need to be preserved for
future generations!)
MICE =
Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Exhibitions
NEAR = Near
Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (First spacecraft to orbit an
asteroid)
NOVA =
National Organization for Victim Assistance (in USA)
SITA =
Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (A crazy acronym, only
Indians are capable of inventing!)
STYLE =
Success Through Your Life Enrichment
WATCH =
Women and Their Children’s Health |
A Monday edition
of The Jakarta Post carried the following acronyms: MGA,
VRAM, MPEG, EDO RAM, AMD, WRAM, NASCAR, SoftPeg. In case readers
are confused, let me hasten to say that these are computer-related
acronyms.
Many people must
have heard the name "ADIDAS". But how many would know
that this term might represent "All Day I Dream About
Sports". Likewise, the word ‘SCUBA" originates from
"Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus".
Some of you may
be wondering what "ERASMUS", located on Jalan H.R.
Rasuna Said in Kuningan, Jakarta, stands for. It’s the
"European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of
University Students".
What should be
your objective? To be "SMART", right? "SMART"
signifies "Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic &
with a Timeframe"!
A good friend of
mine once explained to me that "BIBLE" means
"Behold I Being Life Eternal".
"Together
Everyone Achieves More". That’s what a TEAM is all about
– indeed a beautiful definition for a team.
How did the word
"TIP" originate? It is "To Insure Promptness".
Most of us in
modern organizations must sweat it out to know the "SWOTS"
– "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats &
Strategies".
Without going to
a university, one can easily obtain a B.A. degree: just visit the
U.S. and add a suffix "B.A." to your name ("Been in
America"). I have an uncle by name Budalur Ayyaswamy
Ramanathan and he would always like to be referred to as "Ramanathan,
B.A."! Conveniently, he didn’t have to venture beyond the
Matriculation examination.
A zealot Hindu
explained that the word "GOD" is composed of three
letters – G for Generator (Brahma), O for Operator (Vishnu) and
D for Destroyer (Shiva) – the Trinity embodied in Hinduism.
When the GATT
negotiations were taking place under the aegis of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), a delegate from a developing country expressed
his genuine fears and wondered "Are we GATTing into hot
water"? The long-winded discussions caused another delegate
remark that the whole exercise was only a "General Agreement
to Talk & Talk"!
Incidentally, the
generally understood meaning of the term "NATO" in
Indonesia is different - "No Action, Talks Only"!
Next to the
United Nations, Indonesia must rank high in giving birth to a
multitude of acronyms. Way back in 1991, The Jakarta Post, in
one of its editorials, described Indonesia as a country of one
thousand and one acronyms.
Haven’t we
heard somewhere about some government employees practicing 5D? No,
it’s not like any 3D movie. It is just a shortened version of
Datang, Duduk, Dengar, Diam and Duit! 5D may or may not be an
acronym but it shows how well one can perfect the style.
We are quite
familiar with krismon for monetary crisis and kristal for
total crisis. Do you know what is Clinmon? It referred to
the crisis in U.S., arising out of the "Clinton-Monica"
affair.
Towards the end
of the Year 2000, bankers all over the world were going through
nightmares on account of Y2K – the millennium bug. What is Y126
then? It’s nothing to do with any year. It is 126 Yen to a U.S.
dollar. Unless you followed the context, it would be next to
impossible to decipher what such acronyms meant.
The World Health
Organization, a wing of the UN, is intended to promote the health
of the world’s citizens. But, with an acronym like WHO,
unfortunately it lacked identity itself!
A Government cell
in India is named "C-DOT" (Center for Development of
Telecommunications). In the ever-expanding bureaucracy, one might
suggest yet another acronym "C-DASH" – what could be
created to fit this nice-sounding acronym may be left to the vivid
imagination of the government officials!
A few acronyms
are indeed humorous. Forum Indonesia Nederland’s is FINED. COW
and CAMEL are not necessarily animals. They could be Contract of
Work, and Capital, Assets, Management, Earnings and Liquidity
respectively.
Medical science
has contributed to the arts too. The acronym for Assisted
Reproduction Technology is ART.
When the Indian
cricket teams frequently lost their tests, the selectors – BCCI
(Board of Cricket Control India) was re-christened by an
enterprising columnist as Bored of Choosing Cricketers for India.
I guess the first
acronym must have been coined by a VIP (Very Important Person), of
course, immediately followed by SOS (Save Our Souls).
Light
Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation – say this to a
layperson and he will surely blink. Tell him it’s nothing but
LASER and he’ll instantly beam.
We know DONUTS.
For Bridgestone, Indonesia, it is an acronym for its Driver
Oriented New Ultimate Tire Science.
Do you know what
is an IDEA? It is Imagination, Data, Evaluation and Action. Isn’t
it a unique idea? The meaning is similar to PDCA cycle (Plan, Do,
Check, Action), often taught in workers’ training courses in
Indonesia.
Nothing is worse
for morale than a lack of information down in the ranks. The
author of the book The Art of Japanese Management defined
this problem in organizations as "NETMA": Nobody Ever
Tells Me Anything".
When Rajiv Gandhi
was Prime Minister of India, he was considered so indispensable to
the nation that the media described that he truly enjoyed a
"TINA" factor, meaning "There Is No
Alternative".
A female
executive at a company sent an important and lengthy report to her
boss, a middle-aged gentleman. This man, certainly not so gentle
and acting too smart, returned the report to the lady with a small
note saying, "You’ll have to KISS".
The woman
justifiably got very angry and went straight to the managing
director’s (MD) office, strongly complaining to the MD. She
demanded that if no action was taken against her boss, she’d
have no alternative but to quit. The MD promptly called the male
officer into his office and asked for an explanation.
Meanwhile, the
news spread like wildfire within the office and people started
commenting that "men become naughty after 40"! However,
after a little while, both the male boss and the lady emerged from
the MD’s office, the former smiling and the latter looking
visibly shy. What was the secret of their rapprochement? All the
boss meant in his note was "You’ll have to Keep It Short
& Sweet" (KISS)!
An acronym may
also be derived from its "parent" acronym, such as
"ARF" (ASEAN Regional Forum), ‘ABAC" (APEC
Business Advisory Council), "AFTA" (ASEAN Free Trade
Agreement), and the like.
"O.K."
is an abbreviation for "all right". For some people,
this can even take the form of a verb, as in "I OK’d your
proposal".
George Orwell
once compared using jargon to the process of picking up ready-made
and worn-out strips of words and gluing them together as an easy
way to avoid the thoughts required for original writing.
Similarly, I think the present-day acronyms often reflect a desire
to avoid the responsibility of engaging in direct, clear and
effective communication. Simple, direct and forceful words are
abbreviated into unintelligible acronyms, which pose a great
threat to understanding and knowledge.
Just as a
tailpiece, is the word "acronym" itself an acronym?
While writing on the subject of Acronyms, I raised this question
in the "Your Letters" column of The Jakarta Post
a few years ago. An ingenious correspondent replied that it stood
for "Association for Citizens’ Rights for Oppressed New
York Minorities"!
Another writer,
Haluk Yuksel of Jakarta, commented that I missed one of the best
acronyms ever created by the San Francisco Transport Authority:
Fresno Area Rapid Transport, affectionately known as FART!
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