Snippets and gleanings - acronym corner

Cunning linguistics
I've always loved acronyms for their ability to succinctly capture new phenomena in contemporary society. For example, NIMBY made its appearance in the USA in the 1970s and, as is the way with these things, rapidly crossed the Atlantic to our shores. Standing for 'not in my back yard' it neatly skewered the middle-class tendency to object to any planning proposal which might adversely affect a white collar community in terms of loss of amenity, with the subtext being that the motivation was selfish. In other words it was perfectly okay to build it somewhere else, which usually meant in a poor neighbourhood. 

The three-day week
A relatively recent arrival to acronym corner is TWATS. Standing for 'Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays' it reflects the shrinking working week spent in an office post-Pandemic. It is also applied to those electing to work from home on Mondays and Fridays. As a result, a new city-centre phenomenon has emerged whereby Thursday has become the new Friday, with bars and restaurants packed with office workers celebrating the end of their three-day incarceration at HQ. Finding myself unwittingly caught up in this drunken melee one Thursday evening in the West End the uncapitalised collective noun suddenly seemed much more appropriate.

Going bananas
And now welcome a new kid on the acronym block. BANANA has surfaced in relation to Britain's Byzantine planning regime. While relating to our economy, it has nothing to do with our being a banana republic (I'd happily settle for a republic but I don't think bananas would flourish in our climate, global warming notwithstanding). No, it means 'build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone', replacing NIMBY as the go-to acronym in these circumstances. City AM reports on findings by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) that British planning consultation allows for “multiple opportunities to object, delay and force changes” to major infrastructure projects, which is deterring foreign investment. Who knew?

By the by
Or is it by the bye? Either is correct - you choose. But, continuing on the subject of acronyms, it irritates me (much does at my age, alas) when a group of initials not forming a word are (or is that is?) described as such. For example, NATO is an acronym, BBC is an abbreviation.  A recent acronym, WASPI, was created, with intentionally waspish intent, by the campaigning group Women Against State Pension Inequality. The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, however, found itself with an unintentionally awkward acronym. Nevertheless, 'the Fannies' went on to endear themselves to the wounded troops in World War I for their bravery and compassion. Long live acronyms!

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