Wednesday, April 8, 2009

c1: Acronyms protect the society

Without life, there is no society. Acronyms save lives and protect the society by providing for efficiency.

When doctors are trying to save the life of someone with a severed arterie, they don't shout out the long medical terms for everything they need. Instead they use acronyms. Same with trying to diagnose a disease. It is far easier to remember 4 short letters than the word Mediastinopericarditis (inflamation of pericardinas and mediastino tissues).

Same with soldiers in the field. It's easier to warn those in the field of imminent doom by yelling out IED than Improvised explosive device. Or if a ship was in danger out in the ocean, it's faster to tap out S.O.S than it is to type, "Dude, our ship is sinking save us!!111"

When people argue about the confusion that acronyms cause, most people know what all the important ones mean anyways. Almost everyone knows that S.O.S is a distress call, and I.H.O.P is happy pancake fun time.

C2: Acronyms have helped more than they have harmed.

In schools, teachers create acronyms for their students to study in order to help organize their thoughts. After a while, the knowlege will eventually transfer into long term memory, helping the students later on as they progress into higher grades. For an example, we use PEMDAS in math to help us remember the order of operations.

When taking notes, or even flowing in a debate round it is always easier to use abbreviations and acronyms. In fact, most teachers actually encourage their students to write in shorthand in order to save time and space. Acronyms compress information to make it easier to remember information.

Many argue that students will never learn how to form real words or have the ability to form complex sentences, but the truth is, our society has been endorcing acronyms since the beginning of it's formation.

Our nation is U.S.A, this form of debate is PFD, the school I attend is PTISD. We use acronyms to save time, to be quicker, and yes we're also a bit lazy.

However, isn't this lazyness the force that has driven us to invent cars, escalators, iPhones, treadmills, and many other varios "shortcut devices"? If anything, acronyms have not hurt society, but have helped it progress.

3 comments:

  1. I'm in love with your brain.
    THIS is PFD?? You expect me to be able to do PFD?!

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  2. O.O oops. I didn't mean to post this!! I was just typing it up on blogger....man.... I must have pressed 'publish'

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  3. > Many argue that students will never
    > learn how to form real words or have
    > the ability to form complex entences,
    > but the truth is, our society has been
    > endorcing acronyms since the beginning
    > of it's formation.

    I would dispute this. The (English) language has evolved and in particular, has grown. In 'the beginning', whenever that was, there was no need to form acronyms because the English language was in its infancy. Science and technical fields (where many acronyms are found) were also not as developed.

    No, the growth and prevalence of acronyms is definitely a byproduct of today's fast pace society (not only in the typical things like the ability to electronically transmit information (and hence, the meaning of acronyms), but also in Science and Maths, where increased specialisation has led to increasingly obscure terms and jargon).

    Anyways, I'm not a big fan of 'debating'. This is a bit of an inane topic, though. :)

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