January 14, 2015

Are these 7 couples REALLY still together?

Yes.

Click-baited again. No ad revenue for me again— just the satisfaction of a hit on my stats counter. Onto the honest title and real article.


7 Funny Overlapping Acronyms

1. BM = Bowel movement; British Museum
The arts editor of The Economist delivered a public lecture at the LSE, and I fought back laughter each time she said, "I know BM best," or "BM solved the problem of overflow on weekends...." I don't go in for toilet humor, but I live to juxtapose high and low culture. Nothing is lower culture than material evacuating through colons, slumped prostrate on hospital bedsheets. I will spare you a picture.

2. DD = Bra size; doctor of divinity
If braziers fit any theological study, they must form revisionist exegesis of the (X-Rated) Song of Solomon. But if buxom concubines in ancient Israel did wear bras, they were probably fitted according to ephahs or cubits or something, not the un-invented Roman alphabet.

Perhaps I think small thoughts. Plenty of women are DDs, and many women are vicars. Statistically, someone must have both a pair and a parish.

(nothing to proportion, scale, or good taste)

3. LBC = Leading Britain's Conversation; Long Beach, California
London has a radio station called Leading Britain's Conversation. Every Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg answers listeners' questions live on air, and the mayor of London does so on the first Tuesday of every month. These are called LBC Phone-Ins.

Snoop Dogg often informs his listeners that he hails from Long Beach, California, e.g. "With so much drama in the L-B-C. It's kinda hard bein Snoop D-O-double-G". British politicians are many things, but cool is not one of them. I die like 5-0 every time I hear that they're on the LBC.

"I'm as concerned as anybody about the chronic unemployment figures in east London."

4. NHK = Japanese news network (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai); Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk)
This is the most obscure acronym in the list, but I think the world needs a Calvinist Hello Kitty.

Five points to whoever gets the tulip. Not everyone will get the tulip.

American TV viewers can find NHK in the valley between PBS and C-SPAN. It's the same channel that airs Al Jazeera and BBC World News. There was no NHK on the island of Japan until national broadcast radio launched in 1925. Back when the country isolated itself from the world (1641–1853), the Dutch were the only foreign power allowed to run a trading post into the country, partly because they made no missionary efforts to reform the Japanese.

5. PRC = People's Republic of China; file format extension of Amazon Kindle books
China or Amazon – which one really allows for freedom of speech? Wake up, sheeple, to the Amazonian wolf at your door. First they put predatory prices on print books out of pure malice for small bookshops, and then they addict us to Prime digital books that, it turns out, we don't even own! What will Amazon do next? I think they should show their true colors: claim islands in the South China Sea.

That's right. Jeff Bezos wants Manila.

6. SA = Salvation Army, Nazi brown-shirts (Sturmabteilung)
I make no comparison. Just giving a fun fact!

7. STD = Sexually transmitted disease; Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society
The acronym STI (sexually transmitted infection) is used more than STD, but I want to get it out there that the organization of student wordsmiths is, in abbreviation, venereal disease. To be fair, STD was not in use as a medical term until World War II. But coincidentally, Sigma Tau Delta formed the same year (1924) as the first World Health Organization multilateral treaty "respecting... the treatment of venereal diseases."

I've read that many college students experiment with drugs, sex, and alcohol, so there must be some who are in STD with an STD. Whom can these bookworms model? The pantheon of writers abounds with alcoholics and drug-addicts, but I'm not aware of any authors mythologized for copulating unto the point of illness. Like sophomore English majors, we can speculate without research nonetheless.

Going way back, we know that Shakespeare sired a child out of wedlock and spent his career hanging around a theatre frequented by groundlings. Looking at the last century, I bet The Beats didn't carry prophylactics on the road with them, and Arthur Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe. She couldn't even sing "Happy Birthday" without trying to seduce someone. Also in the pantheon is Hunter S. Thompson. QED.

You may enjoy my five other Sevens:
7 things you do that YOU WON'T BELIEVE you used to hate
7 Reasons/Ways I celebrate Black History Month
7 People who should, but never ever will, work together
7 Things I Lost Escaping My Uncertain Fate (of '07 or '08)
Christmas List in July [7 items]