I know, I know; I’ve neglected the blog, but it’s been busy around here. So I thought I’d post a quick bit of information for you all and a piece of antipodean trivia.
First, do you know the difference between abbreviations and acronyms? Don’t feel bad if you don’t; you’re in the majority. An abbreviation is any shortened form of a word or term. An acronym, from the Greek roots akron (end or tip) and onuma (name) is a special kind of abbreviation that you can pronounce like a word instead of spelling out the letters.
For example, EPA is an abbreviation because you say “Eee-pee-ay.” Examples of acronyms are NASA, WHO, laser, NAMBLA, TARDIS, and COYOTE. You can make an acronym out of the first letters of each word or by combining sections of words, like Benelux (Belgium + Netherlands + Luxembourg) or Groc Out, which is what my neighbors and I affectionately call the local Grocery Outlet.
The U.S. Department of Defense loves to create contrived acronyms like BATMAN and ROBIN (Biochronicity and Temporal Mechanisms Arising in Nature and Robustness of Biologically Inspired Networks). No, I did not make that up. If I could make up stuff like that, I’d be working for the DOD (which is not an acronym) and prohibited from blogging about it.
Second, so I’m working on this report written by Australians. We won’t get into the specifics of Commonwealth vs. Standard American English just now, or I’ll be here all day, but apparently Australia, or at least the state of Victoria, has a Department of Human Services. This of course has got me wondering if there is also a Department of Marsupial Services. You never know.
Australians, if you are reading, I am most certainly not mocking you. Just taking a break from some hard slogging. Go grab a can of Foster’s and relax.
By the way, the Australian Society for the Study of Obesity is known as ASSO for short, which is not funny at all. Unless you’re alive. Also, the Technological Institute of Textile & Sciences in India calls itself TITS, and I kind of admire the organization for using it, unlike those wusses who chose to call the Computer Literacy and Internet Technology qualification CLaIT.