Thursday, August 21, 2008

PYSBRIoM: Glenn Greenwald

No! Not another freaking acronym! Okay, here's what it stands for: People You Should Be Reading Instead of Me. (And yes, it's an acronym, not just an abbreviation, because you can pronounce it as a word. Pizzbreeom! Let's review. FEMA, NASCAR, FISA: acronyms. NFL, NRA, USSR: not acronyms.)

Anyway...

If you never have, you owe it to yourself to read a blog by Glenn Greenwald. According to his own bio, he's a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator. Now he writes stuff. He blogs for Salon but he's published some books too. He continually debunks right-wing myths and beltway conventional "wisdom". His relentless criticism of the media and its relationship to our government is devastating. And he was one of the first media persons to raise an eyebrow at the FBI's (not an acronym) flimsy and possibly fraudulent case against Bruce Ivins.

We need Glenn Greenwald now more than ever. Worth reading every day.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Actually, an acronym isn't defined by whether you can pronounce it or not. An acronym is a word formed from the first letters of each word in a phrase (USSR, NATO, NFL), while an abbreviation is a shortening of a word (asst., jr., amt.). Sorry, Tennessee...

MAB said...

Well, if you can't pronounce it, then you don't have a word, do you? Unless people start saying Niffle instead of enneffell, it's not an acronym. I stand by my definition.

And nobody ever said "sorry" to Tennessee Tuxedo. They said sorry to Charlie Tuna. Chumley's catch phrase was "Gee, Tennesee..." So there.

Unknown said...

Being able to pronounce something is not required to make it a word. For example, can you pronounce 'floccinaucinihilipilification'? I thought not. And yet, it's a word in the dictionary and everything. :-)

You don't get 'Sorry, Tennessee...'?? I'm surprised at you! Think the rushed bit of speech at the very end of a commercial for some big sweepstakes or contest, circa the 1980s.

MAB said...

And our president can't pronounce "nuclear". The level of difficulty is not the issue. Common usage is.

Unknown said...

Look, you don't have to believe me but you should at least believe the dictionary. :-)

ACRONYM: a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term

ABBREVIATION: a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole ('amt is an abbreviation for amount')

(Merriam-Webster)

MAB said...

I believe both you and the dictionary. Nothing I said contradicts the dictionary definition or what you said in your first comment. In fact, it reinforces it. NATO, radar and laser are all acronyms. NFL and USSR are not.

Unknown said...

NFL and USSR are still acronyms. Nothing in that definition said they're not. You said they had to be pronounceable as a word. Well, you pronounce the first one "En-eff-ell" and the second one "You-ess-ess-are".

They can't be abbreviations because "NFL" and "USSR" are not shortened versions of one word, but a word made from the initials of a several-word phrase.

Again, sorry, Tennessee... :-)

MAB said...

Nothing in the definition said they weren't tomatoes either. That doesn't mean they are.

Read the definition of abbreviation again. A "shortened word OR PHRASE". I have yet to contradict the standard definitions.

You can say "sorry" all day. You haven't convinced me.