[Ads-l] Acronym of the year? CBS / WBS / IWBTG

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Apr 26 17:40:38 UTC 2017


Now there's Ted Cruz's EL CHAPO Act.

https://www.axios.com/ted-cruz-introduces-el-chapo-act-to-pay-for-the-wall-2378374826.html

Which is really poetic justice, because it makes El Chapo pay for the
anti-crime Wall.

JL

On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 3:20 PM, Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> That one's particularly obnoxious, because the formal name of the statute
> (Public Law 107-56) is the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing
> Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT
> ACT) Act of 2001."  The drafters were so pleased with the acronym, and so
> determined that it not be overlooked, that they actually made it part of
> the name.
>
> John Baker
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of Laurence Horn
> Sent: Sunday, April 2, 2017 10:06 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Acronym of the year? CBS / WBS / IWBTG
>
> Just your standard garden-variety backronym, no worse than the PATRIOT act
> (officially the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate
> Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”.
>
> LH
>
> > On Apr 2, 2017, at 10:00 AM, W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > More contortionym than acronym.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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