Dear Sirs/Madams:
As a regular user of acronyms, abbreviations, and general shortcuts (AAGS), I take umbrage with your arbitrary and capricious prohibition of, and even thinly veiled disdain for, the use of the acronyms at you esteemed scientific meeting, the so-called IMONIP-IX. Your program contains at least thirty-two acronyms (some repeated) including eleventeen which you perpetrated yourselves. ("Email" is not a true acronym, but a hybrid acrobreviation, but I digress.)
Lest you conclude that this is Yet Another Reactionary Response To The Voice Of Reason (YARRT-TVOR), be aware that the acronym has a long and illustrious history and is arguably the most important linguistic innovation since the terminal preposition. You may recall, as I do fondly, Winston Churchill's protest against certain attacks on the latter as "... an outrage up with which I will not put," (AOUWWIWNP, pronounced 'you wimp'). The acronym is deeply embedded in our culture, our society and, may I speculate for a moment, our genes (TAGACAT-GAGACAT-TATTATTAT).
I recommend, for starters, the Acronym Finder, or the Opaui Guide to Lists of Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Initialisms on the World Wide Web (WWW, pronounced 'wa-wa-wa-waabit'). It seems all of the 3-letter acronyms and abbreviations have been taken--many several times over--but there is more than one way to SKIN a CAT. As for Dentists (DDSs) and Dictionaries (MWs), there are many in this world, including dictionaries of acronyms for astronomy, biomedicine, chemistry (my favorite, AASD), general, and military. Give in and join the crowd. If anyone manages to invent an exponentially recursive acronym, it may spontaneously generate a black hole and end life as we know it. Your can of worms should arrive by UPS ASAP.
Admittedly, acronyms can lead to ambiguity or outright jocularity, but for reasons of alacrity, efficacy and sanity, we must use them reliably, indubitably. In fact, I will go so far as to suggest that in our age of austerity and concern for unnecessary waste (is there such a thing as necessary waste?), and you can quote me, we must not blindly sacrifice brevity for clarity!
In summary: you, sirs/madams, display all of the symptoms of Acronymphobia and should be investibated by the FBI, CIA, BSA, and FFA. There is help for the Acronymphobe and Acronymphomaniac.
IBBY,
Stephen Ducharme, BS, MA, PhD, IANAL, PDQ Staff Acronymphomaniac UNL, AA/EEOC/ADA, NE "Remember the ALAMO!"P.S. Please permit me to disclose a conflict of interest in this matter, being a gainful employee of governmental entities swarming with acronyms and, most revealing, a recipient of largess from the so-called National Aeronautics and Space Adnauseum (NASA, pronounced 'nasa') which is, by all reasonably objective measures, possibly the single most acronym-infested entity in the solar system, followed closely by the USA-DOD, and UN-COLA (United Nations-Committee On Lists and Acronyms).