Monday, February 16, 2004
Acronyms Can Read Out Nicely, Yes Maam!
Now hear this: WHEN USING AN ACRONYM, DON'T REPEAT THE WORDS IN THE ACRONYM.
I want to smack people who talk about entering their "PIN number" at the "ATM machine." PIN stands for Personal Identification Number, while ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine. To repeat the "number" and "machine" part is redundant, repetitive, and redundant. And repetitive.
The absolute worst: the Cable ACE Awards. ACE stands for "Award for Cable Excellence." So, every year, during awards season, I have to listen to ads for the "Cable Award for Cable Excellence Awards."
I could go off on a sub-rant about using the word your acronym spells WITHIN your acronym, such as the commercials currently airing in Canada for IN Network, in which IN stands for, ahem, IN Network, but that's a topic for another time. Besides, I kind of get a kick out of the computer OS GNU--which stands for "Gnu's Not Unix."
Copyright 2004 Rich Bowen
I want to smack people who talk about entering their "PIN number" at the "ATM machine." PIN stands for Personal Identification Number, while ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine. To repeat the "number" and "machine" part is redundant, repetitive, and redundant. And repetitive.
The absolute worst: the Cable ACE Awards. ACE stands for "Award for Cable Excellence." So, every year, during awards season, I have to listen to ads for the "Cable Award for Cable Excellence Awards."
I could go off on a sub-rant about using the word your acronym spells WITHIN your acronym, such as the commercials currently airing in Canada for IN Network, in which IN stands for, ahem, IN Network, but that's a topic for another time. Besides, I kind of get a kick out of the computer OS GNU--which stands for "Gnu's Not Unix."
Copyright 2004 Rich Bowen
