Thursday, July 06, 2006
Seares: Soca and other foul acronyms
By Pachico A. Seares
News Sense
Acronyms have been used to hail, promote, condemn, or ridicule.
And by almost everyone: public official, private citizen, government office, NGO, administration, opposition.
An acronym, formed by the first (or first few) letters of a series of words, easily sticks in the mind.
Bureaucrats were first to use acronyms and yet slowest to learn what an acronym must not be. Who came up with RTWPB didn't see that the wage board might be confused with an RTW retailer.
People don't mind if acronym slanders on street protest placard or graffiti-filled wall. Using acronyms, protesters can get away with libel or sedition, often repeated on papers' Page One or in TV prime news, e.g. "Arroyo kawatan!" and "Ibagsak!"
The President is thoroughly maligned and yet when she (or a "sipsip") uses Gloria as acronym for projects on cheap food or free land or housing, she is reviled.
But then they smirk too over traffic enforcers' names Citom and Tedman (after Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Mayor Ted Ouano).
Public funds
It seems that when public funds are involved, people resent the acronym's use for private interest.
A House bill seeks to punish those in Government who do just that, but will it ever pass among acronym-obsessed solons?
By the way, people can stand Gloria's Sona, Gov. Gwen's Sopa, or even a municipal mayor's Soma.
But how can they not puke over someone's Soca?
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 6, 2006 issue)
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