Last night my mother told me, “We just got DSL” — a high-speed Internet hookup for the computer. As we talked, we discovered that neither of us knew what DSL stands for. (Subsequent research revealed that it means “digital subscriber line.” Of course, it is also “LSD” backward.)
This is not an isolated incident. In a growing trend, initials are replacing words. I call it “creeping initial syndrome” (CIS). The trend is particularly noticeable in psychology, where post-traumatic stress disorder is now almost universally referred to as “PTSD,” and attention-deficit disorder is called “ADD.” In addition, there are ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), SAD (seasonal affective disorder), IAD (Internet-addiction disorder), and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).
