Ever notice that letters are increasingly becoming part of our advertising and marketing culture? Huh?? what’s this nut talking about?
Letters, or more specifically, abbreviations for this or that product, service, or what have you. IBS, common for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (yuk), and if thats not bad enough, there’s more. IBSC and IBSD. I wont go into detail.
Take your favorite pain relief medicine XYZ product. Fine, it works great for you. Headache, muscle pain, cramp or whatever, gone. The product has relieved your symptom. Now they come out with the newer product, only they append it with PM, as in XYZ PM. Not only does it fix your headache, but it puts you to sleep. Then there’s the AM version to fix your headache, but it won’t put you to sleep. Instead, it helps keep you awake throughout the day.
It irritates me no end to watch this aspect of our language being reduced to alphabet soup. Ever see in print, TV or some other medium, this or that person with a list of LMNOP after his/her name. Seems to me that the more soup you can append to your name, the more important you seem to be, or at least you seem to think you are. Time was if you were the president of Better Bottle Brush LTD for example, you would be referenced as John Smith. Period. Your desk name plate might say John Smith President, and the door to your office might have a similar name plate. Your business card would have something similar. But to be referred to as John Smith LMNOP? That never happened.
Ok, I get it, you do all it takes to earn some high level degree in your field of choice. Fine, good for you, you’ve done your job, and now you are on your way, hopefully, to a successful life and career. But there are so many people with a can of alphabet soup after their name that are either woefully underemployed, or worse, unemployed.
TGIF. I just learned that it means, Thank God It’s Friday. And to think, I always thought it stood for Toes Go In First. Learned that about 50 years ago from a traveling shoe salesman.
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