It's time for some letter salad.

Acronyms can make sense. Or not. How many did you know?

1. MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction. An apt name for an insane nuclear policy.
2. CINCUS – Commander-In-Chief, US (Fleet). World War II acronymn replaced by the less ridiculous CINCPAC, or Commander-In-Chief Pacific.
3. Flak – Yes, an acronym. Stands for Fliegerabwehrkanone, or anti-aircraft. Which gives a whole new meaning to the idea of 'flak-catcher'.
4. SMEG – Société Monégasque de l'Electricité   du Gaz. Has anyone bothered to explain to the Monaco gas authority why English speakers are laughing?
5. THRUSH – If you don't remember this, you probably aren't old enough to have watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E, which stood for 'United Network Command for Law and Enforcement'. The enemy, or THRUSH, stood for 'Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity'. No wonder our parents made us turn the TV off. (Well, that, and all the S and M. Ask 2legs.)
6. NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
7. DARPA – Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They invented the internet, and if you wear your tinfoil hat, they can't hear you.
8. FUBAR – Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition. That's our story, and we're sticking to it.
9. Gulag – Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey, or Chief Administration of Collective Labor Camps. (Give yourself a point if you knew what it was.) This proves two things: even Russians use acronyms, and they got the word for 'camp' from the Germans.
10. PHARE – Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies. What? You aren't up on your EU abbreviations? For shame!

Make up your own acronyms. Declare yourself the Great Enumerator of Nomenclatural Initialised Updated Signifiers. You are, anyway.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

27.01.14 Front Page

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