A second helping of alphabet soup

Fri, 05/01/2009 - 11:58am

In this week's list of the world's worst acronyms, I asked readers to send in nominations for the ones that bug them the most. We already have some great ones:

Lindsay J. Gardner:

MANPADS: man portable air defense system

I should know I work on them daily and have to say the word MANPADS over and over.  It’s border-line embarrassing.

Stephen E. Trimboli:

It’s a little dated, but remember the South West African People’s Organization – SWAPO! It always sounded to me like a State Lottery game, a boardwalk amusement, or a bad TV game show.

John Carrick:

CHOGM, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Sounds like a hapless hungry diplomat, dutifully attending yet another bleak reception, chomping on a tough, cold, dry chicken leg and inadvertently crunching the bone …

Kevin Miller:

SAP: the German software company that produces the WAY overpriced business solutions apps.  Are you a sap for buying it?  I say so.

Lauren Gelfand:

C'mon, what about the MILF [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] in the Philippines?

Send your favorites to fpletters@foreignpolicy.com and I'll keep posting the best ones here.

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I like it!

Keep them coming! It reminds me of seeing those pictures on the internet for the Ontario Mega Finance Group.

LOL

Lauren Gelfand wins, hands down! :)

MANPADS

Ha. That one came up just today in a military staff officers' course. Bladder control jokes ensued. Yeah, we're adults...

UNHAS

This is funny only in Portuguese. UNHAS stands for UN Humanitarian Air Service and in Portuguese "unhas" means "nails"!
:)

These are really funny. They

These are really funny. They should be turned into bumper stickers.