Acronym Annoyance

One of my pet peeves in life is abused acronyms.  Just a few days ago some Republicans starting pushing for the “Internet SAFETY Act,” which conveniently stands for “Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act.”  Gee, that really helps me remember it.  Think of the poor person who had to dream that one up, and then imagine the excitement they experienced when they realized they had done it!

What really bugs me about acronyms is when they are used to express some comprehensive concept.  Businesses and churches do this all the time with mission statements.  I remember walking into a Pizza Hut a few months ago and seeing their mission statement.  It was a 6 point statement that just happened to spell “P.E.A.R.L.S”.  I won’t take the time to dispel what they all stand for, but one example will suffice.  The “S” stands for, “Think Safety First”.  Now, shouldn’t that letter be a T?  What makes it so the F is left out?  I think we would be hard pressed to find a Pizza Hut employee who actually knows their mission statement, let alone the acronym!

I guess what gets me is that it is thought that since these letters fit in an acronym, it must be comprehensive and true.  I can respect that Pizza Hut acronym in that it at least seems that they came up with their mission first, and then squeezed an acronym out of it.  The one’s that really bug me are the ones that start with the letters and then find their mission statement from that.  It seems to me that is doing the process backwards and you are just forcing yourself to work within the confined space of a particular word.

I don’t no, maybe I make too much of this, but that’s what pet peeve’s are for, right?  Just watch, a year from now I’ll find myself dreaming up some acronym for the mission statement I’ve made.  Or worse, I’ll be doing it the other way around.

bry