By Isaac Tay 25S06L
We Are Using Too Many Acronyms In Society.
And I’ve had enough of this.
TDIAB (The Day It All Began)
Unfun fact #1: Some common ‘words’ that are actually acronyms include RADAR (Radio Detection And Ranging), TASER (Tom A. Swift Electric Rifle), LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) and SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus).
I remember how it all happened. How it all began. The day I waged my war against acronyms.
It was during a CLE lesson (that’s Character and Leadership Education for you, dear sir) in Secondary 4, and the topic was on online scams. Now, I remember myself nodding off towards the end of the lesson, sleep ready to overtake me, when something caught my attention.
It was one of the presentation slides shown on the screen, explaining the steps on how to identify online scams. What drew my interest though, was that it was neatly condensed into 4 simple actions, and the first letter of each action formed an acronym. Simple, right?
Well, I remember thinking to myself, “This is such a terrible acronym that has no relation to online scams whatsoever. I’m definitely going to forget this in 2 minutes.” And I did.
I think my failure to remember what the acronym was should be testament enough to prove that the acronym, indeed, was pretty terrible at helping me memorise the 4 steps. Looks like someone’s going to fall prey to online scams now.
Which brings me to my main point: We are using too many acronyms in society.
AAIOS (Acronyms Are Infecting Our Society)
Unfun fact #2: Acronyms are not allowed to be played in official Scrabble games, except for some acceptable entries (e.g. words identified in the above unfun fact, as well as wysiwyg – ‘what you see is what you get’)
It’s funny how nobody is making any mention of this infestation that is slowly plaguing our society. So slowly, in fact, that nobody notices.
But I do.
And I’m calling everyone out now, the same way Kendrick did on Control.
Civics classes. Y’all need to up your game. Can any one of you readers tell me what the third A in the 4 ‘A’s of helping are? If you did not say Assure, then you know the 4 ‘A’s of helping aren’t really helping.
Economics. Y’all need to up your game. If I had a dollar for every acronym used by economists, I’d be making supernormal profits. Perhaps the reason for the abysmal Timed Practice results was because of all the acronyms us poor students had to swallow. PPC vs MPC? AR vs MR? LDMR vs LRAC? 𝚷?
The government. Y’all need to up your game. After all, you have been using acronyms so much it seems like creativity has died. At this point, acronyms have taken better care of us than you do. They have raised us up, given us an education from MOE, made sure us boys get to play around in a forest during NS, provided us with shelter in HDBs (through BTO), ensured our retirement with CPF, and so much more.
Any plans for next month? I’ll be celebrating NDP.
What am I doing right now? Sitting in the NLB at AMK reading this article which shows that I am not the only one with sentiments against acronyms.
Don’t like this article? Come over to my HDB and talk to me about it. Just make sure to use the MRT, because by car, you’ll have to go through the SLE to the TPE to the ECP to the MCE to the AYE… (sigh)
WAAO (Why Acronyms Are Overrated)
Unfun fact #3: The ancient Romans used many abbreviations on their coins – the most famous is S.P.Q.R (Senatus Populusque Romanus), although technically this is not an acronym but rather an initialism, as the abbreviation cannot be read as a single word but only as a group of letters (for the same reason FBI is technically an initialism, not an acronym). (credits: https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/famous-acronyms/)
If you had taken the time to read through the long chunk of text above, you would have realised this issue goes even deeper – acronyms aren’t actually acronyms, they’re initialisms.
How dare they. As if it wasn’t enough for these filthy letters to plague our society, they also have the audacity to be something they are not. Acronyms (or should I say, initialisms) are not just overused, they’re overrated.
You see, it’s one thing if they are overused. I’m okay with it, as long as it works. But here’s the thing. It doesn’t work. They don’t make things easier to remember. It’s like when we were flooded with Shopee ads all over Singapore. But this time, the aggressive marketing doesn’t even include Phua Chu Kang, making them basically irritating yet also unrelatable.
The point is, initialising everything isn’t always the solution. Sometimes we need better ways to commit something to memory.
BWTCSTM (Better Ways To Commit Something To Memory)
Unfun fact #4: Backronyms refer to words, phrases or names that are then expanded to form a longer phrase. One common example is the term SOS, which people ‘backronymised’ into the term ‘Save Our Souls’. SOS originally did not stand for ‘Save Our Souls’, it was just simply easier to type in Morse code.
This begs the question: if acronyms are not the best way to remember something, then what is? Let’s look at a couple of alternatives I think are better.
Alternative A: Alliteration
You can never go wrong with this. It’s quick, simple to use, and doesn’t require lots of effort into creating the alliteration. Useful if you want to remember something on the fly. For example, I always struggle with remembering someone’s name when meeting them for the very first time.
Using alliteration to tag an adjective to their names (like “Energetic Emma” or “Really-good-at-cooking Ryan”) not only helps me remember better, it also lets me save a conversation topic for future use! (“Hey Ryan, I remember you being really good at cooking! Anything you’ve made recently?”)
Drawback: May be hard to commit to memory over a longer period of time, considering the words can be quite similar.
There Is More Than Barely One Alternative.
That Is, Making The Best Of Acrostics.
Another way to remember something? of
Course! let us all
Remember that, when we want to memorise the
Order of a list of things, an acrostic is
Surely the way to go.
True, it takes time, but
I am sure that
Carefully placing your words will
Surely create something wonderful.
Acrostics are basically the opposite of acronyms, and are best used when you are trying to remember a certain order of the words. Bonus points if you can get the acrostic to fit the theme of what you’re trying to remember. Let’s use our Rafflesian values as an example.
Instead of remembering Fortitude, Integrity, Respect and Enterprise as F.I.R.E. (yawn), how about “Finally! I’m Really Exceptional!”, which is what you’ll definitely say if you follow these values.
Drawback: Takes quite a bit of effort to do, but once you have a good acrostic, you’re good to go.
Don’t whine, just Rhyme!
Another classic. It’s fantastic. You won’t get sick, just choose your pick.
Drawback: It could prove to be too useful, and the rhyme might get stuck in your head for a long time.
Mo. No. Syl. A. Bles.
What do you do in the event of a fire? Literally everyone: “Stop, drop and roll!” (Not gonna lie, the stop, drop and roll sounds like a banger dance move.)
There’s a reason why this phrase is so widely remembered. It uses simple, concise monosyllables that get the point across quickly. Especially helpful when you find yourself stuck in a fire.
Drawback: Sometimes the thing you want to commit into memory cannot be fit into monosyllabic words.
C (Conclusion)
There is more than one way to remember something. It’s time for us to get more original than acronymizing everything (abbreviating, actually). Who knows, having a better way to remember things might even reduce the number of people falling prey to online scams.
CREDITS
https://www.verywellmind.com/using-mnemonics-for-improved-memory-7370351
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6851171
https://www.verywellhealth.com/memory-tip-1-keyword-mnemonics-98466
https://www.deviantart.com/digitalartwww/art/Zombie-City-Post-Apocalyptic-962481075