Acronym Madness

There I stood, staring up in awe at an enormous billboard brightly displaying the many initials I was supposed to know the meaning of, but did not. It was an AM nightmare. No, not AM as in ante-meridiem, AM as in “Acronym Madness.”

I was 19 years old and found myself, quite by happenstance, with a seat on the policy board for a California Student Association. I filled that seat monthly at meetings in Capitol offices, where big players in the state education arena would speak animatedly in Acronymese. I was proud when I was able to correctly identify which agenda item we were discussing. For effect, I’d love to rattle off the acronyms that flew around the room (and over my head), but I don’t know them any better now than I did then.

Not to worry. As a teacher credentialed, employed and RIFed in California, I now boast an impressive acronym vocabulary. Would you like to discuss NCLB? I’m an HQT! My specialties are ELA and ELD. Or maybe an IEP is what your student needs? That’s fine, too. We could meet at IHOP. I’ll bring my PDA.

Perhaps your profession is not as replete with acronyms as mine, but if you listen to news at all, you’ve heard your share. FEMA intervenes in North Dakota. GM no longer needs to buy Fiat. AIG is apparently very generous to its CEOs. You can hear all about it on CNN.

Sports fans are certainly no strangers to the acronym. From the NBA all the way down to CARD, you’re concerned about the MVP. And if food is your forte, you’ll read FDA labels, steer clear of MSG, and probably cook with EVOO. Don’t even get me started on the NYSE.

But nowhere is AM more pervasive than in the world of digitized socializing. The IM has developed a dialect that at times barely resembles English. “OMG,” one IMer might say to another, “I m ROTFL.” To which the response might be, “MDM wants me 2 get off the PC. IDK Y. So, G2G. CUL!”

Years ago I remember complaining that spell-check was ruining young people’s skills with the written word. It couldn’t tell an unsuspecting typist the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ or ‘there,’ ‘their’ and ‘they’re.’ I long for the days when these were the reigning problems with incoming essays. Now the need is in distinguishing ‘you’ from ‘u,’ ‘are’ from ‘r,’ and ‘for’ from ‘4.’

In a unit on Melville’s Moby Dick, I actually had a student turn in a response containing the following sentence: “That cptn was way 2 in2 getting that whale. He needed 2 TAP.” A good overall assessment on her part, but I looked it up, and there are no editor’s symbols appropriate for these errors. I was tempted to note, “u r 2 far gone even 4 spell-check. GAC.”

One day I grew curious about the constant thumbing of mini machinery that was taking place under desks. I asked a student to show me how to use the text feature on my cell phone. She tried to teach me some common texting acronyms, but all I could see was another acronym nightmare, except on a cell screen instead of a billboard. I resisted fiercely. I punctuated, capitalized and even occasionally made parenthetical references with precision. But as a lover of language, I could not ignore efficiency indefinitely. Accuracy and thumb speed don’t go well together on a keyboard four centimeters square.

And so with the best of them I now TXT my DH aka my BFF, when I need to communicate something unsuited for a laborious phone call. For example, I recently said to him: “can I pls c u b4 6? ILY 2 much 2 w8,” to which he responded, “YAE2M.”

And now, my dear readers, U C Y AM is here 2 stay.

KATAIUTC
Key Acronyms to Aid in Understanding this Column)
RIF – reduction in force
EVOO – extra virgin olive oil
ROTFL – rolling on the floor laughing
MDM – my dear mother
IDK – I don’t know
CUL – C U later
TAP – take a pill
GAC – get a clue
DH – dear husband
YAE2M – you are everything to me