Health Warnings for Acronyms

From the [redacted]th part of our The World's Numbnuts series.

In the previous post on the joys of opening boxes that went through a decade of house moves without being opened, we talked about the pleasure of finding a copy of Stedman's Medical Dictionary.

What we did not mention was how Stedman's is dealing with acronyms.

A great many come with a Warning symbol next to them!

The possibility of confusing one acronym with another can cost lives, so the editor put the yellow warning triangle next to dangerous acronyms.

The Stedman's is a clear symbol of the imprecision of language. This sentence should also come with a health warning because it may raise the blood pressure of readers who cling to the notion of "precise language". This temporary increase may shave a second or two off your life expectancy, and we apologise for that.

From the Stedman's, we jumped right to the latest government PR fad of "sending a message". Incidentally, the use of this term seems to follow the pattern of resurgence of bell bottom jeans, but that's not important.

Somehow governments have regressed, it seems. Only months ago, most people would have used email. SMS text, or letters to send a message. Granted, some members of the target audience of said messages may not use cell phones, but then they may not read the New York Times or listen to BBC World Service either.

Sure, the expression 'target audience' is appropriate.

TheEditor of the K-Landnews suffered some collateral understanding from several government messages. The most critical effect of the collateral understanding is that the plan for an Open Letter to the Numbnuts of the World, was shelved.

The realization that TheEditor might not be able to send the right message to the numbnuts of the world was years in the making, which means the decision was accelerated but not prompted by the collateral understanding.

The original draft "Dear Numbnuts of the world, you know who you are, stop fucking killing people" looks quaintly naive at best.

TheEditor then had a great idea: appoint an independent commission to proofread the open letter to make the numbnuts feel more comfortable with it.

The cats intended to serve on the commission flat out refused the assignment, insisting instead on meowing about the general cleanliness of the litterbox and the chosen off-brand of kibbles.

Hence, the numbnuts of the world will be safe, at least for a while, from the withering razor sharp apocalyptic wit of TheEditor.