Irony

I love acronyms. How else can a message be displayed in a quiet manner, but still carry the full force of it being spelled out?

Sometimes, however they are misapplied, misunderstood, or those naming an organization don't realize what they have done. Today, I bring the latter.

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_7734/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=1i32p2EO

Read the story through. It is the normal social guardians claiming that video games cause violent tendencies (I, a product of these violent video games, have not committed a violent crime since I was in middle school. I think it is just 12 year old kids being 12. Hormones, they make us stupid and violent.). Sure, maybe they do.

Re-read the story, though. What is the name of the group responsible for this study? The National Institute on Media and the Family. Now, turn that into an acronym. What does it come out to (omitting smaller regularly ignored words in acronyms)? NIMF. Seemingly innocuous, right? Read it phonetically. Ni-m-ph. What does it sound like? How about, nymph? For those of you who, at this point, don't see the humor in the irony: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymph

The long and the short of it is that I find it funny that a group claiming to be the vanguard for social norms and moralistic references displayed before our children would name themselves something which spells out to the acronym of what is, of essence, a mythical ancient Greek whore.

Well played, NIMF, well played.