POTUS, SCOTUS and the militarization of our discourse
The blogosphere is awash with references to “SOTU” (State of the Union) today. Maybe I’m alone on this, but these new acronyms for events or central institutions of our country bug me. I feel the same way about “POTUS” (President of the United States) and especially, “SCOTUS” (Supreme Court of the United States. What is Congress? Not sure I’ve seen this, but I suppose “COTUS.” How do they bug me? Let me count the ways:
• Since when are “of” and “the” proper elements of an acronym?
• Granted, maybe that’s how they do things in the military – like SNAFU -- and by extension, I suppose, the FBI, Secret Service, CIA, etc. But it’s not that context that bugs me. That’s OK. It’s when ordinary pundits, including liberals who presume to respect the Constitution, show off by spouting cynical insider lingo.
• As suggested in the previous bullet, it represents a militarization of our discourse. In military discourse, that’s fine (after all, we know we all support the troops), but not among civilians
• It just seems undignified to refer to the President of the United States of America with an acronym. He might as well be an “NCO” or a “CO” somewhere. Yeah, yeah, we need to take them down a peg, or sometimes as at present, to the bottom of the rack, but there’s the office as an institution – the reason why, instinctively, decent Americans recoiled at the efforts of the execrable Kenneth Starr to delve into and publicize the details of the sexual life of a sitting President – as opposed to the particular man who holds the position. Somehow, too, to me, “POTUS” is more demeaning than slang like “Prez.”
• The worst is “SCOTUS.” Presidents command armies and spies, so maybe they don’t need dignity. But as Stalin would have noted, the Supreme Court, like the Pope, doesn’t have any divisions, and it depends for its authority entirely on the good will of the other branches of government, which, in turn, depends on the esteem with which the public holds the institution. The Supreme Court really needs its dignity. But here’s the worst part of the indignity: “SCOTUS” sounds an awful lot like a male body part that could be described as fairly unmentionable because it’s not mentioned very often. Come to think of it, maybe Ken Starr made it up for the Warren Court he no doubt hated with as much passion as he could muster.
Maybe somebody else who feels the same, if there is anyone, can explain it better.
• Since when are “of” and “the” proper elements of an acronym?
• Granted, maybe that’s how they do things in the military – like SNAFU -- and by extension, I suppose, the FBI, Secret Service, CIA, etc. But it’s not that context that bugs me. That’s OK. It’s when ordinary pundits, including liberals who presume to respect the Constitution, show off by spouting cynical insider lingo.
• As suggested in the previous bullet, it represents a militarization of our discourse. In military discourse, that’s fine (after all, we know we all support the troops), but not among civilians
• It just seems undignified to refer to the President of the United States of America with an acronym. He might as well be an “NCO” or a “CO” somewhere. Yeah, yeah, we need to take them down a peg, or sometimes as at present, to the bottom of the rack, but there’s the office as an institution – the reason why, instinctively, decent Americans recoiled at the efforts of the execrable Kenneth Starr to delve into and publicize the details of the sexual life of a sitting President – as opposed to the particular man who holds the position. Somehow, too, to me, “POTUS” is more demeaning than slang like “Prez.”
• The worst is “SCOTUS.” Presidents command armies and spies, so maybe they don’t need dignity. But as Stalin would have noted, the Supreme Court, like the Pope, doesn’t have any divisions, and it depends for its authority entirely on the good will of the other branches of government, which, in turn, depends on the esteem with which the public holds the institution. The Supreme Court really needs its dignity. But here’s the worst part of the indignity: “SCOTUS” sounds an awful lot like a male body part that could be described as fairly unmentionable because it’s not mentioned very often. Come to think of it, maybe Ken Starr made it up for the Warren Court he no doubt hated with as much passion as he could muster.
Maybe somebody else who feels the same, if there is anyone, can explain it better.
posted by KISSWeb | 4:07 PM
2 Comments:
A GREAT point -- and if anyone in the left blogosphere actually read Scatablog, maybe it would resonate. It should (and they should). But maybe you need to e-mail the offending BTB (Bloggers That Be) directly, and the US (Usual Suspects) in the MSM (Mainstream... need I say more?) who make up the VILLAGE (surely there's a clever acronym lurking in that lazy putdown, which would never escape KISSweb's lips... um, KISS?) and urge them, or threaten them with unspeakable fates, if they keep up this smarmy practice of reducing everything to initials if not acronyms.
LOL.
No, but seriously, it is a very good point.
Everytime I see GOTV, I think it must be a new cable channel.
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