Abbreviations Carrying Resonance of Names Your Members Shortened
August 3, 2015 11:08 AM Subscribe
It's worth scrolling down to see the better acronyms. I had to look up the Justice Attributed to Wounded Sharks (JAWS) Act — it blocks assistance to countries that do not prohibit shark finning.
posted by exogenous at 11:26 AM on August 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by exogenous at 11:26 AM on August 3, 2015 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure that I can agree with their policy WRT recursive acronyms.
I love the post title, but maybe (wrt the dubiosity of a lot of these) it should have been Acronyms Carrying Resonance of Names Your Members Shortened?
posted by Flashman at 11:31 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I love the post title, but maybe (wrt the dubiosity of a lot of these) it should have been Acronyms Carrying Resonance of Names Your Members Shortened?
posted by Flashman at 11:31 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sparklemotion Pleads for A Right Knob of LExicographical MOpery That Is Of No validity.
posted by Etrigan at 11:35 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 11:35 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
This doesn't happen in the UK.
... and thank God for that. The British equivalent of the White House's Situation Room, however, is called COBRA (for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A). I sometimes think politicians that could achieve more if they didn't waste half their time thinking up acronyms a 12-year-old boy would consider "cool".
posted by Paul Slade at 11:51 AM on August 3, 2015
... and thank God for that. The British equivalent of the White House's Situation Room, however, is called COBRA (for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A). I sometimes think politicians that could achieve more if they didn't waste half their time thinking up acronyms a 12-year-old boy would consider "cool".
posted by Paul Slade at 11:51 AM on August 3, 2015
But that means they have a COBRB, which is fun to say. Corbib! Corbib!
posted by JHarris at 11:55 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 11:55 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Sparklemotion Pleads for A Right Knob of LExicographical MOpery That Is Of No validity.
Doubts Obviously Underlie Bond To Sparklemotion Your Obsessive Uniqueness Regardless of Commitment Obnoxiously Mitigates Meaning, Intent, and Trustworthiness resulting in Manifestations of Etrigan's Natural Talent.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:57 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Doubts Obviously Underlie Bond To Sparklemotion Your Obsessive Uniqueness Regardless of Commitment Obnoxiously Mitigates Meaning, Intent, and Trustworthiness resulting in Manifestations of Etrigan's Natural Talent.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:57 AM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
Also, the federal acronym love is turtles all the way down to the program level. I recently came across a VA program called something crazalaze like VETS HELP ASSIST MED SERV where the entire thing was an unbelievably ornate and borderline-nonsensical initialism.
posted by threeants at 11:59 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by threeants at 11:59 AM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
But that means they have a COBRB, which is fun to say. Corbib! Corbib!
Nope. That one is called the General Information and Jibberjabber Office of the Executive.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:03 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Nope. That one is called the General Information and Jibberjabber Office of the Executive.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:03 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is this a US exceptionalism thing?
No, because American (or U.S.) exceptionalism has a specific meaning, and this ain't it.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:04 PM on August 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
No, because American (or U.S.) exceptionalism has a specific meaning, and this ain't it.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:04 PM on August 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think one of the best thing about my current project for my government job is that it's called Project ONE, and it doesn't stand for anything other than the notion that we want to unite all the disparate legacy sites of the agency into one unified representation.
Politicians also love their backronyms. Library of Congress recently retired THOMAS, the first congressional record online database, at one point it was said that it stood for The House [of Representatives] Open Multimedia Access System, but around 2006 they stopped saying that.
posted by numaner at 12:05 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Politicians also love their backronyms. Library of Congress recently retired THOMAS, the first congressional record online database, at one point it was said that it stood for The House [of Representatives] Open Multimedia Access System, but around 2006 they stopped saying that.
posted by numaner at 12:05 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Making up stupid acronyms is one of the things I hate most about writing new projects. They are especially un-fun to do for joint European projects as this means avoiding unexpected secondary meanings and maybe trying to be a smartarse in more than one language while generally keeping it bland.
I came across a project recently though were the proposers clearly had something in mind and were not going to be talked out of it. A company called KIC doing a project to look at more active use of substations in network management: KIC-ASS.
posted by biffa at 12:14 PM on August 3, 2015
I came across a project recently though were the proposers clearly had something in mind and were not going to be talked out of it. A company called KIC doing a project to look at more active use of substations in network management: KIC-ASS.
posted by biffa at 12:14 PM on August 3, 2015
The British equivalent of the White House's Situation Room, however, is called COBRA (for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A).I can certainly remember it being referred to as simply COBR in the mid noughts and the additional A is a fairly recent change.
For some reason I think of it as another gift from the Blairites but I can't pin down the dates to be sure.
posted by fullerine at 12:24 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Many enthusiastic thanks at finding illuminating link, threeants. Everybody, read.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:26 PM on August 3, 2015 [4 favorites]
Best all-time though: CREEP. Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:31 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:31 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, if this ever produces an Idiotic Shit Sandwich Award, at least they'll have a namesake for it.
posted by psoas at 12:37 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by psoas at 12:37 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Here's a link says that the existence of COBR goes back to late sixties/early seventies. Its not clear when the (A) was slipped in though apparently the Cabinet Office have now gone back to calling it COBR. This Guardian piece from 2002 was already asking about COBRA, but that seems to be the oldest article from that paper now available that mentions it.
posted by biffa at 12:49 PM on August 3, 2015
posted by biffa at 12:49 PM on August 3, 2015
JAWS Act almost feels like a joke.
But I really like EPIC Act of 2015. I look forward to KICKASS Act of 2016. GENIUS Act of 2017.
posted by dios at 1:14 PM on August 3, 2015
But I really like EPIC Act of 2015. I look forward to KICKASS Act of 2016. GENIUS Act of 2017.
posted by dios at 1:14 PM on August 3, 2015
Do these get officially announced anywhere? Like, did Don Young have to stand in front of Congress and talk about how important he thinks the HOT-R Act is and how much Congress needs to support the HOT-R Act? I really hope so. I hope so, and I really hope people came away from that wondering what a hot arr was.
posted by Copronymus at 1:15 PM on August 3, 2015
posted by Copronymus at 1:15 PM on August 3, 2015
I vehemently fight against acronyms for the projects at work, but I am guilty of creating a system whose various programs were named after characters in Tron, all controlled by a piece of software called (you guessed it), the MCP.
posted by combinatorial explosion at 1:45 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by combinatorial explosion at 1:45 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I am also gleefully responsible for the Communication Data Collection systems - because I just like the sound of "The CDC".
posted by combinatorial explosion at 1:49 PM on August 3, 2015
posted by combinatorial explosion at 1:49 PM on August 3, 2015
Here's last place:
Clever!
posted by swift at 1:55 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
365. FOIA Act - FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2015. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)Wait, this is an act about FOIA, which is itself the Freedom of Information Act, which means that it's not a backronym as the author claims, but a meta-backronym.
Not clever. Uses the word itself as the first letter of the acronym. Boo.
Clever!
posted by swift at 1:55 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Isn't a "backronym" an acronym that was made up after the word? Like how there are bills called "FOCUS" or "LOCAL," where they started with the word and figured out how to make an acronym out of it. "FOIA" isn't a backronym unless somebody was using the word "FOIA" before they came up with the acronym - and I don't think they were, although I may be wrong.
posted by koeselitz at 2:44 PM on August 3, 2015
posted by koeselitz at 2:44 PM on August 3, 2015
These fucking cutesy names are why US lawmakers are laughed at internationally.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:14 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by clvrmnky at 3:14 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
The other revoltingly cutesy one that's always stuck in my mind was coined by a group of women who'd ditched (or sometimes been ditched by) their husbands: Life After Divorce Is Eventually Sane.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:29 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Paul Slade at 3:29 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
"FOIA" isn't a backronym unless somebody was using the word "FOIA" before they came up with the acronym - and I don't think they were, although I may be wrong.
In the case of FOIA 2015, it references the original FOIA (as in "Freedom Of Information Act"). So this new bill is utilizing a backcronym because they wanted the name of the bill to be FOIA (the word that people have been using for decades).
So the full name of the FOIA 2015 bill should be something like: Freedom Of Information Act Oversight and Implementation Act of 2015, which is a thing of beauty and does not deserve the bottom spot on this list.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:31 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
In the case of FOIA 2015, it references the original FOIA (as in "Freedom Of Information Act"). So this new bill is utilizing a backcronym because they wanted the name of the bill to be FOIA (the word that people have been using for decades).
So the full name of the FOIA 2015 bill should be something like: Freedom Of Information Act Oversight and Implementation Act of 2015, which is a thing of beauty and does not deserve the bottom spot on this list.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:31 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
These fucking cutesy names are why US lawmakers are laughed at internationally.
I thought it was because of many, many other and worser things.
posted by swift at 3:54 PM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
I thought it was because of many, many other and worser things.
posted by swift at 3:54 PM on August 3, 2015 [5 favorites]
There Is No Computer-Aided Bulletin Achievement Legerdemain Act of 2015.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:24 PM on August 3, 2015
posted by infinitewindow at 5:24 PM on August 3, 2015
Meanwhile, this one deserves an even lower spot than it got:
358. FOCUS Act of 2015 - Fighting Occupied Cell Use So Everyone Drives More Safely Act of 2015. Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.)
Witness the extraordinary laziness: "Hm, so I've got FOCUSED, but that stands for 'Fighting Occupied Cell Use So Everyone Drives,' and that doesn't make sense. I guess I'll add 'More Safely' – that makes more sense. But now my acronym is FOCUSEDMS, which isn't even a word. Eh – whatever, I'll just call it the 'FOCUS' act, and maybe nobody'll notice the other words at the end."
posted by koeselitz at 6:10 PM on August 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
358. FOCUS Act of 2015 - Fighting Occupied Cell Use So Everyone Drives More Safely Act of 2015. Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.)
Witness the extraordinary laziness: "Hm, so I've got FOCUSED, but that stands for 'Fighting Occupied Cell Use So Everyone Drives,' and that doesn't make sense. I guess I'll add 'More Safely' – that makes more sense. But now my acronym is FOCUSEDMS, which isn't even a word. Eh – whatever, I'll just call it the 'FOCUS' act, and maybe nobody'll notice the other words at the end."
posted by koeselitz at 6:10 PM on August 3, 2015 [3 favorites]
Distraction Resulting from In-Vehicle Entertainment Reduces Safety
Yours for free, Bobby Brady.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:55 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yours for free, Bobby Brady.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:55 PM on August 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
Can someone explain the use of trillion in their second quality?
The only way I can make sense of this if they were being sarcastic. But that easy fiction clashes with the real work involved in raking and commenting on 364 bills.
[plate of beans]
posted by ecco at 7:57 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
"There are, according to the Library of Congress, 2.6 trillion bills called the FAIR Act. There are 1.9 trillion called SAFE or HOME or FACT or TRUST."A trillion "FAIR Acts" implies there have been 30 million "FAIR Acts" tabled every single day since 1776. Even they were counting occurrences of the word "fair" from all acts from all English speaking countries, it's absurd.
The only way I can make sense of this if they were being sarcastic. But that easy fiction clashes with the real work involved in raking and commenting on 364 bills.
[plate of beans]
posted by ecco at 7:57 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's approximately 4.5 trillion tonnes of very obvious hyperbole.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:32 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Sys Rq at 8:32 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
These fucking cutesy names are why US lawmakers are laughed at internationally.
Well, that, and also the content of their legislation.
And the use of riders.
And filibustering.
And just... Congress. In general.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:29 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, that, and also the content of their legislation.
And the use of riders.
And filibustering.
And just... Congress. In general.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:29 PM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
An egregious omission; The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 - Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.
How does one 'intercept' terrorism?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:34 PM on August 3, 2015
How does one 'intercept' terrorism?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:34 PM on August 3, 2015
The PATRIOT Act of 2001 deserves a lifetime award, with that acronym that makes it so dangerous to vote against.
Ranking about the same, in my opinion, is the nonlegislative AMBER alert (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response / Amber Hagerman).
Of course, working out the acronym first is a good way to avoid disasters like, famously, Operation Iraqi Liberation.
posted by fredludd at 4:28 AM on August 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ranking about the same, in my opinion, is the nonlegislative AMBER alert (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response / Amber Hagerman).
Of course, working out the acronym first is a good way to avoid disasters like, famously, Operation Iraqi Liberation.
posted by fredludd at 4:28 AM on August 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
I was looking for TEACH. The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002.
posted by doctornemo at 5:28 PM on September 2, 2015
posted by doctornemo at 5:28 PM on September 2, 2015
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posted by sparklemotion at 11:17 AM on August 3, 2015