Submitted by Victor on
Promoting the use of clear language among children’s rights advocates
NGOs come in all shapes and sizes, and as the good little file clerks that NGOs are, we seem to have categorised ourselves under a colourful list of acronyms - that is, abbreviations composed of the first letter of other words and pronounced as a word. Here are just a few of the more creative examples:
Take BINGO, for instance. No, not the game. It stands for a big international NGO.
Don’t get confused with TANGO either. It’s not the dance, but a technical assistance NGO.
RINGO may evoke a certain Beatles member, but it’s none other than a religious international NGO.
Then there are those pretending to be as big as a country, like CONGO - a corporate-organised NGO.
And even ones that aren’t an NGO at all, like GONGO - a government-organised NGO.
Human rights reports are also filled with acronyms, though it's done with the intention of making life easier for advocates. Imagine having to write “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” every time you refer to UNESCO -- not to mention the number of breaths you’d have to take to say it! (We did find longer examples, but they exceeded the legal word limit.)
While the UNESCO acronym is just that: an acronym, other acronyms create actual words. Here are some of the more creative examples we’ve come across.
For grammar enthusiasts, you can find pronouns like WHO (World Health Organization).
New parents can even look to acronyms for ideas for baby names, with examples such as TESSA (Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa), MEGAN (Mentoring Excluded Groups and Networks), and ROBERT (Risk-taking Online Behaviour Empowerment through Research and Training -- itself worthy of a Jargon of the Week entry!).
Fashionistas will find links between the clothing industry and human rights with the use of acronyms like CAP (Consolidated Appeals Process), while meteorology students can read about weather conditions like HEAT (Health Education and Training) and those studying zoology will come across words on animal anatomy like SCALES (Southern Communities Advocacy Legal and Education Service).
But the top prize for acronym creativity must go to the one that describes a fluid that circulates in the vascular system of a plant, that is, SAP (Structural Adjustment Programme).