Connections: Word Salad

Suppose we were chatting and I said, “I just got back from the SHAMF and went directly to East Hampton Town Hall because the board was discussing FIMP.”

Huh? Some of you may recognize the latter acronym because it sometimes gets into The Star (over my objection), and you may be able to figure out what SHAMF stands for, especially if I give you a hint: It occurred last weekend.

Dictionary.com defines an acro­nym as “a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words and pronounced as a separate word, as in Wac from Women’s Army Corps.” The Star follows New York Times style, so the acronym Wac would appear in capital letters in our pages (WAC), like LIPA does, for example.

It seems to me that unless, like LIPA, an acronym has been in common use among a general population for a considerable time, and is pronounced as a word — like FEMA but unlike, say, AARP, which we pronounce as a series of four letters — its meaning should be spelled out. Otherwise, it is as if our reporting were directed at a select group of readers who are in the know, regardless of what other readers are able to make of it. 

Acronyms are like jargon, which the dictionary defines as words or phrases “used by a particular profession or group . . . difficult for others to understand.” 

As an editor of a newspaper that claims it “Shines for All,” I am against both jargon and mysterious acronyms. 

Here is another example: To many reporters, I guess, it seems obvious that ACAC (even if it has an unpleasant sound, a bit too close to “caca” for my ears) refers to the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee; but is ACAC not incomprehensible if you don’t happen to live in the general vicinity of Amagansett? 

Other acronyms are softer on the ears. I have to admit that I do not mind STOP, because it stands for Stop Throwing Out Pollutants (always a good idea). As for ARF, it’s such a perfect acronym that I don’t think I have to tell anyone what it stands for.

Soliciting other easy-to-grasp acro­nyms from those around the office on Tuesday, DARE and MADD were suggested: DARE is a program that offers Drug Abuse Resistance Education to young people; most Americans would probably remember that it had something to do with daring to keep off drugs. And I guess everybody knows that MADD is an acronym for Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

But, oh dear. If you look up the acronym MAD on Google — minus one “D” — you will find about 100 other possible meanings, like Mini Attack Drone, Mosquito Abatement District (I liked that one), and Mixed Anxiety and Depression. The first definition to pop up in a Google search, in bigger letters than the others, is Motorists Against Destruction. I can’t explain that one. Further down on the page you might come across a MAD acronym that, like MADD, begins with the word “Mothers”: It stands for Mothers Against Decapentaplegic. (Again, I have no idea. Apparently it has something to do with fruit flies and protein.)

Incidentally, FIMP, if you don’t happen to know, stands for Fire Island to Montauk Point, which is used in connection with what the Army Corps of Engineers calls its “reformulation study” for much of Long Island; they’ve left out the “R” and “S.” And SHAMF stands for Sag Harbor American Music Festival. I wonder if anyone has ever actually tried to say it out loud.