Mr. and Mrs. Acronym

Nice article by Barry Newman in last weekend's Wall Street Journal (access may be restricted) about AcronymFinder, one of my favorite online research sites. AF turns out to be a mom-and-pop operation run by Mike Molloy and Susan Ebert out of their Estes Park, Colorado, home, and it's one hundred percent human edited. The couple receive an average of 200 new acronyms a day; unlike some language prescriptivists, they don't insist that every acronym be pronounceable as words. (Non-pronounceable acronyms are, technically speaking, initialisms.)

Ms. Ebert, 51 years old, and Mr. Molloy, 52, are dedicated to public comprehension. They have acronyms in their DNA, and Mr. Molloy has a rare gift for recalling what they stand for.

"How about C4ISR?" she said one morning, testing him.

"Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance," Mr. Molloy replied.

"Kinda scary," said Ms. Ebert, as her husband punched C4ISR into AF's search box and got a confirmation.

"This one's a great illustration of why acronyms are needed," Mr. Molloy said. "The ability to precisely express complex concepts in a handful of letters is pretty cool."

Some of the "pretty cool" acronyms Molloy and Ebert have cleared for takeoff include:

AWESOME: Angina with Extremely Serious Operative Mortality

BLOAT: Bacon, Lettuce, Onion, Avocado, & Tomato Sandwich

CASANOVA: Carotid Artery Surgery Asymptomatic Narrowing Operation

FATTY: Forward Area Tactical Typewriter

INEPT: Insensitive Nuclei Enhanced By Polarization Transfer

PASTA: Partial Articular Side Tear of the Rotator Cuff

NBF: Nothing But Fun

SMASH: Self-powered Multi-fuel Army Space Heater

WIMPS: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles

Comments

[Zebra]

Love those acronyms, especially the BLOAT one! Wonderful! Looking forward to your next post...