Acronyms and emojis are not good enough

When we went to school, repetition and recitation were always effective learning methods. Repetition started young: Two plus two equals four… saying your times table… even learning the 1954 pledge of allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The point is, recitation, repetitive recitation, locks in not only the words, but their full literal meaning.

Over the years, in an effort to squeeze in more words before the next commercial break, television presenters have shortened phrases and titles, names and places, to acronyms, causing a loss of meaning, an absence of memory recognition of what the acronyms actually mean.

Here’s a list of acronyms heard during only one newscast: NASA, FBI, DOJ, 1-6 Committee, 9/11, AF, SOAS, OMG, UNICEF, AKA, DIY, GMO, PC, PR, POW, MD and SCUBA.

Go on, see if you can extend them to reveal their full and real meanings. Most people cannot. And that means most people are only guessing what they are talking about when they use these and others in conversation.

Three thousand years ago and more there were hieroglyphics in Egypt. They used pictures as a means of capturing meaning, long before text, alphabets and clear intent to convey the exact meaning first appeared in 500 BC. Once mankind developed letters and words, hieroglyphics no longer conveyed actual meaning, precise intent.

Now, along comes the visual world we live in, born of the 1800s invention of photography and the 1900s pre-eminent art form cinema, and we rely more and more on personal interpretation of images. When the computer age came along, a blue thumb’s up on Facebook sort of, inaccurately, meant you agreed, or liked it, or went along with someone’s thought, or simply acknowledged their existence. Which is it? No one will ever really know, and you’ll probably not remember clicking that thumb’s up. In short, no one really knows what you truly mean.

Let’s go back to that list of acronyms of an evening broadcast of the news and reveal their true meaning… and if you read the words carefully, you will perhaps come to rethink what you thought the acronyms meant. Their actual names are perfectly clear as to actual meaning, intent (and order of words) and purpose, not perhaps the slant put on them in the short-hand world we now live in.

NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration; FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation; DOJ: (United States) Department of Justice; 1-6 Committee: United States House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack; 9/11: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center; AF: U.S. Air Force; SOAS: School of Oriental and African Studies; OMG: Oh My God; UNICEF: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund; AKA: Also Known As; DIY: Do It Yourself; GMO: Genetically Modified Organism; PC: Personal Computer; PR: Public Relations; POW: Prisoner of War; MD: Medical Doctor; SCUBA: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

In school, would it be enough to stand, put your hand on heart and simply say “Pledge, yeah” or IPAT FOTUS ATRF WISO NUGI WLAJFA — or do the words of the pledge of allegiance actually mean something more?

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now resides in New Mexico.