BCWYAF*

*Be Careful What You Acronym For

When George Mason University recently named its law school Antonin Scalia School of Law in honor of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the school’s acronym ASSoL became the butt of much low humor and raised such a stink that the name had to be changed:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a43545/antonin-scalia-george-mason-law-school/

Expecting that institutional acronyms are fertile ground for further frivolity, I undertook to find more examples (guilt by association?) — but alas and AAALAC (American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care), most of them are about as funny as ARISTOTLE (Annual Review and Information Symposium on the Technology of Training, Learning, and Education); e.g., my trusty old Abbreviations & Acronyms Dictionary contains many more “dogs” (ARF — Advertising Research Foundation or American Rationalist Federation) than LAFS (Los Angeles Funeral Society).

Nonetheless, by sheer dint of dogged research, I managed to dig up the following:

ACNE: Alaskans Concerned for Neglected Environments
BLIMP: Big Look Improvement Motivation Program
BRA: Bee Research Association or Boston Redevelopment Authority
CHAOS: Committee for Halting Acronymic Obliteration of Sense — not to be confused with KAOS:

COSA NOSTRA: Computer-Oriented System And Newly Organized Storage–To-Retrieval Apparatus
FAGS: Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Services
GASP: Group Against Smog and Pollution
HELL: Higher Education Learning Laboratory
HOTLIPS: Honorary Order of Trumpeters Living in Possible Sin
MEDLARS: Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System
OOPS: Offshore Oil-Pollution Site
PLATO: Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations
SIXPAC: System for Inertial Experiment Pointing to Attitude Control
SOCRATES: System for Organizing Content to Review and Teach Educational Subjects
SPASM: Society for the Prevention of Asinine Student Movements (Why not? Students have been protesting asinine society long enough! Fair is fair!)

Speaking of (almost) long enough, I would be remiss to close short of completing your acronym education:

But no such education would be complete without the world’s longest acronym, the honor of which goes to Russia for this space-eater:
NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT   English translation: YOUDONTWANTTOKNOW.

And now, at long last, my WORK (Washington Operations Research Council) here is done.
ADIOS (Automatic Digital Input-Output System).

CERTIFIED LETTERS

Some might say that the last thing the world needs is another set of letters following a person’s name indicating his or her expertise in a given area. But they proliferate anyway. –J. Brendan Ryan

The above quotation is from a recent newspaper article concerning the proliferating use “of letters following a person’s name” in order to sound impressive, without the years of study, training and experience of those who have earned their credentials, such as John Figurehead, CPA (Certified Public Accountant), and Susie Moneybags, CFA (Certified Financial Planner). According to the article, many unearned letter designations are procured for little more than payment of a fee, so be wary of acronyms which may look impressive, but may be misleading (if not bogus).

In the public interest, The Observation Post’s highly-qualified proprietor, mistermuse, COP (Certified Observation Post-man), has investigated this crime against humility and has compiled a list of suspect entities in order to protect you, valued reader, from being taken in by those who want you to fatten their bank accounts or suscribe to their ideology or cause. Here is a sampling of said suspicious entities; as for each of their acronyms, you do the math — I mean, the letters:

Licensed Improving Speech Pathologist

Certified Reactionary Against Progress

Authorized Shitting Specialist

Accredited-Hater Of Liberal Ethics

Bachelor Of Official Broad-based Studies

Doctor Of Religious Kookism (or of Religious Kosherism, whichever way your karma krumbles)

Armed with the above information, you are now uniquely prepared to avoid being hoodwinked by Charlatans, Hucksters And Other Scoundrels. Aren’t you glad you’re a TOP reader?