Gryphon's Word of the Day, February 9, 2008

The word of the day for February 9, 2008 is "acronym" — noun — : a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI). : initialism.

Val has a "new" game for us to play. She gives us several letters. We use them as the initial letters of the words to make a sentence. This week's letters are TCRABC. My entry: "To create reality as beauty counts."

My favorite acronym originated in the comic strip Li'l Abner, by Al Capp. He had a group of wild-eyed, hairy, radical—probably anarchist—students surface every so often who called themselves Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.

Since we have a veritable alphabet soup of acronyms at work, we often play around with them to come up with the real meanings. This can be fun, even though it is not usually career enhancing. Lately, the powers that be have told us we are not to make words out of acronyms. There are some exceptions: CATIA is one that we never did spell out.

Our quote for the day is Arthur Fine (b. 1931), U.S. philosopher of science. repr. In The Philosophy of Science, pp. 261-278, R. Boyd, Gasper, and Trout (1984). Originally appeared in Scientific Realism, “The Natural Ontological Attitude,” ed. J. Leplin (1984)

Let us say, then, that both the realist and the antirealist accept the results of scientific investigations as “true,” on a par with more homely truths.... And call this acceptance of scientific truths the “core position.” What distinguishes realists from antirealists, then, is what they add onto this core position ... a third alternative emerges—and an attractive one at that. It is the core position itself, and all by itself.... Let me introduce the acronym NOA (pronounced as in “Noah”), for natural ontological attitude, and, henceforth, refer to the core position under that designation.

;^) Jan

Tags: acronym