I have always had a soft spot for acronyms, and for poking fun at IBM and its over-use of acronyms (and even IBM marketing for attempting to stop technical staff from using them when naming products!!).

Willie Favero has a humorous look at the use of acronyms, especially in the context of relational database technology.

Acronyms

While watching ER last night (Thursday) on TV, I commented on the “foreign” language the doctors and nurses spoke in the emergency room. It sounded like a bunch of meaningless garble. My daughter quickly pointed out to me that I must not listen to myself talk very often. She is so correct. Our industry is terrible about “shortening” words and expressions into acronyms, abbreviations, and initials. In fact, everyone does it today. We speak in strange groupings of vowels and consonants just like the doctors in the television show. So, for this blog entry, I would like to look at “our language”, how we have gone from English (or should it be US American) to IT talk. Gee! How many acronyms is that in one paragraph? ER (Emergency Room), TV (television), US (United States) and IT (Information Technology).

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