ROFL from TMI.
If you happen to be acronymically impaired, that secret message means Rolling On the Floor Laughing from Too Much Information. I may have come of age in the Age of Aquarius, but I’m growing old in the Age of the Acronym.
When I was a little kid in Catholic school, some of the other students would write the letters JMJ atop their papers and worksheets. I felt clueless until someone filled me in, that those capital letters were a kind of prayer to the Holy Family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Years later in college, I remember the joy of checking my mail slot and finding a letter from a distant girlfriend. On the back of a fragrant pink or lilac envelope were the letters SWAK. Consider my exhilaration when someone told me they stood for Sealed With a Kiss.
JMJ and SWAK are examples of acronyms, a word that comes from two Greek elements: “extreme” and “names.” So an acronym is a kind of super name, a short and sometimes secretive, form of communication in which each letter stands for a complete word. Most acronyms can be identified immediately on the page as a series of capital letters, such as USA, the UN (United Nations), NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), UPS (United Postal Service) or the OED (Oxford English Dictionary).
But it is also the case that some older acronyms, because of their common usage, have earned lower case status and are no longer recognized as acronyms. The word “radar,” for example, is short for “radio detecting and ranging”; “sonar” for “sound navigation and ranging”; and “laser” for (get this!) “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”
Who can forget the scene in which Goldfinger pointed that laser between the legs of Secret Agent 007?
“Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?”
“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”
Some acronyms have developed a bad reputation as blood clots in the flow of technical or bureaucratic information, as in this real draft of a company brochure:
“The CompIQ eBill process will allow for provider bills to be reviewed and paid electronically by facilitating the submission of bills to payers in the state required ANSI 837 format. We supply payers the ability to return Electronic Remittance Advice, ERA’s, to medical providers in the required ANSI 835.”
But the acronym can also serve a subversive function as when soldiers in World War II created “fubar” to express their frustration that military matters and strategies always seemed “Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.”
In his astonishing compilation “The F Word,” British lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower debunks the notion that the F Bomb derives from some legalistic acronym, such as “for unlawful carnal knowledge.” According to Sheidlower, “Acronyms are extremely rare before the 1930s.” It must be said that in the last 50 years, the acronym has become more important, and much more common in many forms of expression.
Curiously, the acronym has prospered in both the formulation of technocratic communication as well as in the emoticonic coding of Twitter and IM, that is, Instant Messaging. It’s impossible in the Internet age to think of verbal or written communication without the prolific — perhaps profligate — use of acronyms.
In her book “Wired Style,” Constance Hale (a name that sounds like a weather report) includes these terms in her glossary: CD, CDA, CDMA, CD-ROM, CGI, CORE, CPM. Add the other 25 letters and it’s easy for any Luddite to feel as if entry into this world requires learning a foreign language.
A different kind of exclusion may be the motive for the use, especially by the young, of acronyms in forms of electronic communication, such as text messaging. Some common acronyms have ooched their way into common usage: Your BFF is a Best Friend Forever; BTW means By the Way; IMHO stands for In My Humble Opinion; and LOL means you are Laughing Out Loud.
But there are snarkier expressions designed to piss off parents, teachers, and other figures of authority: PLOS sends a warning that Parents Looking Over Shoulder; KMA invites the reader to Kiss My Ass; to which the reader may respond STFU, that is, Shut The Fuck Up.
Initials are, of course, a more formal expression of the acronym. For the most prominent people and places, the periods disappear, giving us JFK, LBJ, and in the case of a recent president, a single middle initial, W. (Thank goodness there has been no movement to shorten the current president’s identity to BO.)
I love my own initials when I see them, even when they belong to someone else. Consider then my special joy when a friend, Dave Angelotti, baked me an apple pie and daintily carved RPC into the crust. For that alone he became my BFF.
