Why are Americans obsessed with acronyms, abreviations and initials? [closed]
Closed by System on Sep 13, 2018 at 22:27
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If anybody has an answer to this question I'd love to hear it. And, yes, it is on topic because I've used the obsession in a story.
Here's the thing . . .
There's a difference between text and speech. I understand that whilst writing a report a person involved in law enforcement or medicine my replace 'Gun shot wound" with "GSW" - it's quicker and easier. However, I have watched a plethora of TV shows where a character says, "GSW to the chest." It makes no sense! It's not quicker or easier!
"GSW" is five syllables. Gun shot wound is only three!
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1 answer
There are several reasons why acronyms, abbreviations and initials would be used. Some of those reasons have to do with the reality of the relevant professions, others might be as much for the audience's benefit as they are about what would be realistic.
- Anyone can say "gunshot wound". When we hear "GSW", on the other hand, we "know" the speaker is a professional medic / policeman / etc. "GSW" is part of the professional lingo of the relevant profession, we associate use of lingo with professionalism.
- Think of the situations in which you're likely to hear "GSW" - noise, lots of people, maybe the report is being made over a creaky radio transceiver. It is critical that the information is passed correctly, and understood by everyone who needs to understand it. If "gunshot wound" might sound like something else, you don't say "gunshot wound". An extra syllable is a small price to pay for avoiding mistakes.
- While the professionals all need to understand the information being transmitted, do you really need all the civilians milling around to hear someone has a gunshot wound? "GSW" keeps the information to those who are supposed to receive it.
- If a person writes "GSW" and reads"GSW" on a daily basis, is it all that unnatural to also say "GSW"?
Using a lot of abbreviations, acronyms and initials is not strictly an American thing either. For example, George Orwell in 1984 used a lot of abbreviations in part because they sound "structured" and "military", in part because they were ubiquitous in the USSR. (They were ubiquitous in the USSR because Russian has words that are already long, conjugations make them even longer, grammar says if you talk about something with a multi-word name, like "faculty of medicine", all parts of the name have to be conjugated depending on whether they're the subject of the sentence, the direct object, the indirect object...)
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