It’s a possibility that my brain is hardwired so that my initial thoughts are as inappropriate as possible. But years ago, I remember hearing an ad on the radio for Universal Technical Institute–UTI–and I thought, Who would name a school so that it shares the same acronym as “urinary tract infection”?
Recently, I attended a friend’s wedding in Kuna, a nearby town, and down the street from the wedding venue is a daycare incredulously named Kuna Kave Kids. (Note: Kuna is home to the Kuna Caves, an underground lava tube cave system.) My jaw dropped and my boyfriend laughed like a loon at the idea of a daycare donning a name that could be abbreviated as “KKK”–especially considering that the original spelling of “Cave” was altered.
There are others, too: Wisconsin Tourism Federation (WTF), STD Contractors in Michigan, S & M Amusements (arcade sales and service), and PMS Mortgage (www.trustpms.com, as if I’m going to trust something that makes me moody and fat every month), just to name a few.
I'd like to get a quote on herpes, please...
It’s not “grammar,” but it’s another aspect of our language that tends to get overlooked in such a way that some of these people deserve Darwin Awards for their stupidity. A daycare called KKK? Really? And I thought we were teaching our children that the Holocaust was a bad thing.
WTF is up with these acronyms?
Grammaniac 