Tag: Acronyms
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Plain Words, or pandemic medical gobbledygook
JMS PearceHull, England The great essayist and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) once said: “Words, when written, crystallize history; their very structure gives permanence to the unchangeable past.” I suggest that the problems posed by writers who fail to convey meaning are not new.1,2 As long ago as 1713 the Scriblerus Club was founded to ridicule…
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Observations on acronyms
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom When Prime Minister David Cameron recently thought that LOL meant lots of love, not laugh out loud, he appeared out of touch. (The Guardian, May 11, 2012) He illustrated the difficulties that acronyms can cause. But acronyms are not new. The Romans used SPQR to abbreviate Senatus populusque Romanus, inscribed…