A man who called our office last week had some words for us. Words about letters.
“I’ve lived here forever,” said the local. He’s noticed how the Valley Record typically refers to the TPC Snoqualmie Ridge golf course using its acronym, and told us he didn’t know what the acronym means. Nobody that he knows knew what it means. Keep that in mind, he told us.
Ah, acronyms. Every day, we’re confronted with them. Civilization invented written language as a way to transmit and preserve language. However, soon after, I suspect, someone had the bright idea to speed things up, abbreviate and thus the first acronym was born. Confusion was sure to follow.
Back in journalism school, we were trained to avoid the acronym, to spell things out for clarity’s sake. But even seasoned writers can fall prey to the tempting conjunctions. So what do you do when an acronym is part of a proper name? The official name of the big golf course on Snoqualmie Ridge—which hosted the Boeing Classic last week and is home to many local functions, clubs and meetings year-round, a lot of which go into the paper—is the TPC Snoqualmie Ridge. “TPC” stands for Tournament Players Club, a designation for a course that hosts the PGA Tour (PGA stands for Professional Golfer’s Association). There’s your answer. But “Tournament Players Club” is a bit of a mouthful.
The call got me thinking about all the other Valley acronyms we seem to use, day-to-day.
Here’s a quick glossary of the various ones that you may or may not know. We try to spell these out, but many are in common use.
EFR: Eastside Fire & Rescue, the fire authority in North Bend, Fall City, Carnation and King County.
PSE: Puget Sound Energy, your power company
KCLS: King County Library System, local libraries
KCSO: King County Sheriff’s Office, county cops
CERT: Community Emergency Response Team, active in Snoqualmie, Carnation and Duvall
DNR: Department of Natural Resources, which takes care of the Mount Si NRCA, Natural Resources Conservation Area
King County DEPR, or Department of Planning and Environmental Review, which handles your building permits if you live in the county
AWC: Association of Washington Cities, to which the cities of Snoqualmie and North Bend belong and sometimes turn to for advice
WSDOT: Washington State Department of Transportation, which makes sure our highways and mountain-pass travel go smoothly
SVSD: Snoqualmie Valley School District
SVA Church: Snoqualmie Valley Alliance is a Fall City church that recently had a major remodel
SVCN: Snoqualmie Valley Community Network, a local group that helps students and families live better, healthier lives
SVLL: Snoqualmie Valley Little League, baseball
SVYSA: Snoqualmie Valley Youth Soccer Association, children’s soccer
Eastside FC: FC stands for football club
And finally there’s us, the SVR, known around our company’s servers as such.
Of course, this is not a complete list, and I’m sure new Valley acronyms are in the works. People love putting words together, and these things sometimes permanently enter our language. For example, next time you’re at the QFC, you’ll use your PIN number on an LCD screen to get cash from the ATM.
QFC, by the way, stands for Quality Food Centers. Just to let you know.
