An acronym, by any other name ...

A while ago, we were trying to come up with a catchy marketing name for a new web site idea. Someone finally came up with UTOPIA. Dramatic and meaningful, medieval and visionary, deep and motivational. I asked her if she was inspired by the great work of Sir Thomas More, and she replied, "No, who? It stands for User Tested Optimized Practices In Action. It's an acronym".

Oh, how we geeks love those acronyms. Since the earliest days of computers, we've used and abused them, from ENIAC through DOS, and it seems to be getting worse. They have become the lingua franca of the industry, and are dropped at technical gatherings with abandon. If you're anything like me and truly willing to admit it, then most of them make no sense.

However, there is no way any of us geeks want to appear ignorant, so when someone asks what you think of the latest developments in FRP7 technology, you'll nod your head sagely and say "I think there's still some work to be done on the FRP7 stuff. Not sure where it's going yet, but I am keeping my eye on it". Then, while you still appear knowledgeable and wise, change the subject and say something really meaningful like "How 'bout them Cowboys?", and get off the subject of FRP7 (whatever the hell it is) as soon as you can.

The whole use of acronyms in our business goes way back. Let's look at that fundamental unit of computing power, the bit. I always thought it sounded like one of those cuddly little words your mother would use as in "what's that little bit of fluff in your belly button, son?" or "now look at that nice bit of fish. We could have that for tea tonight". (You should be aware that I was raised in the north of England, and my mother's use of the language was sometimes a little different ... to say the least!)

But oh no, the glamour and simple romance of 'bit' went out of the window once a geek decided that 'binary digit' needed to be turned into an acronym. Ever wondered who first thought of doing that? I remember that there was research in the late fifties/early sixties where someone was experimenting with a different electronic base where a signal was not just 'on' or 'off', as represented by a binary state, but could be 'on', 'off' or 'neutral' and would be represented by a ternary state. Apart from the increased complexity of design that a ternary system would have required, perhaps the reason no one pursued it was that no-one wanted to deal with the political correctness implications of a 'ternary digit'. Food for thought!

After a while, acronyms become so commonplace that we completely forget that they ever were acronyms. Even now you can go into operating systems and see references to the 'print spooler'. How many of today's geeks know what a spooler really is? It's an acronym. It originally stood for Simultaneous Peripheral Operations On-Line, but that is so lost in folklore and stories of punched cards and paper tape, that no one remembers.

With the proliferation of Internet names, almost every English word has been registered as some kind of dotcom, and this has resulted in the increasing use of foreign or even made-up acronym words as company names. One doesn't know if IDCIRCO.com is Latin for 'for that purpose' or if it just stands for Ian and David's CIRcus COmpany. It's a great game to play with almost any high-tech company name, and one that's been going on for decades. Half the people who worked for IBM (and I was one for a while) just knew that it stood for I've Been Moved and that DEC (when it was around) Doesn't Ever Change or Doesn't Even Compute. Strange how most of these 'fun' acronyms are somewhat disparaging, though.

The latest and greatest acronym abuse must surely be the 'World Wide Web'. (Of course, the web was invented by a fellow Englishman) Who was the genius that thought "I know, let's take a three syllable phrase and shorten it into a NINE syllable acronym which is one of the most unpronounceable sets of letters in the English language? Double ewe, double ewe, double ewe". Of course, "dubya, dubya, dubya" is completely unacceptable for so many reasons. Which of us hasn't felt at least a slight tinge of embarrassment when telling someone over the phone "just go to our website at double ewe, double ewe, double ewe, dot, ourwebsite, dot, com"? The whole 'dot com' thing is bad enough, but there must be a better acronym than WWW. How about III? It could stand for Internet Information Interchange, and it would be so much easier and cool to say "triple I" than "double ewe, double ewe, double ewe". Even Aye, Aye, Aye has a wonderul nautical flavor about it. How about even BBB for Big BroadBand? Even W3 is one syllable more than the phrase it represents!

At least I haven't heard anyone attempt to say "whu, whu, whu". Surely, ANYTHING would be better than WWW. Anyone up for a national referendum to change it?

In fact, in today's environment "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." would have a whole new interpretation as a ROSE is now just a Real Olfactory Sensory Experience ...

Glyn Meek, with 40 years of experience in the technology industry, has earned his curmudgeonly outlook.