Earlier today, I'm in my cubicle performing the most mundane of all editorial tasks - verifying references in PubMed. And as I waded my way through, I realized that the definition of the word acronym must have changed over the last few years. So, I went to dictionary.com, and here's what I found:
n. A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women's Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as radar for radio detecting and ranging.
OK, so if the definition hasn't changed, how the hell does this happen:
Treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration with Photodynamic Therapy (TAP) Study Group. Photodynamic therapy of subfoveal choroidal neovascularization in age-related macular degeneration with verteporfin. Arch Ophthalmol. 2001;119(2):198-207.
Or worse yet, this:
Anti-VEGF Antibody for the Treatment of Predominantly Classic Choroidal Neovascularization in Age-Related Macular Degeneration (ANCHOR) Research Group. Improved vision-related function after ranibizumab vs photodynamic therapy. Arch Ophthalmol. 2009;127(1):13-21.
I understand that it's nifty to create a study/reseach group that has an acronym that doubles as a real word, but just how much creative license is being expended these days to create acronyms? I mean, how do we get an acronym like ANCHOR, when only two out of 14 words (and some pretty sizable words at that) are used to create it?
WTF indeed?
