NIKE, the American shoe giant, recently started 鈥淣ike iD鈥�, a special service
for people ordering online. It allows customers to choose what cushioning,
colour and other features they want on their shoes.
Jonah Peretti, a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had read
critical reports about Nike鈥檚 labour practices in developing countries, so he
took advantage of Nike iD鈥檚 personalised service by ordering a pair of shoes
with 鈥淪weatshop鈥� printed on them. Nike refused to comply with his request.
Peretti questioned the company鈥檚 decision, and a long e-mail correspondence
ensued.
Eventually, Peretti went to the media with his story, and transcripts of the
correspondence got onto the Internet and flew round the world.
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More bad publicity for Nike, you might think. Well, not entirely. According
to Smart Business magazine, Nike reports that it has been deluged with
e-mails about the incident鈥攁nd at least 25 per cent of them have been from
people interested in ordering products via Nike iD.
Poker players will know the old saying that there are times when you
can鈥檛 win for losing. For Nike, it seems, the opposite is true.
THOSE who feel nostalgic about the way people used to communicate in the days
before IT would have enjoyed a party thrown last week by Chap magazine,
a small-circulation London publication which is making a valiant attempt to get
us all to return to the styles and attitudes of the 1930s.
The party was held aboard a boat on the river Thames, and the many
attractions on offer included an Internet chat room. However, no computers were
involved. Instead, it took the form of a roomful of old-fashioned mechanical
typewriters, with a butler standing by to act as a modem. When you had finished
typing your message, you gave it to the butler, who went off to deliver it by
hand to the person it was addressed to.
Oh, for the good old days!
WE HAVE been taken to task by several readers for calling RAS syndrome
鈥渞edundant acronym syndrome鈥�, when in fact it should be 鈥渞edundant abbreviation
syndrome鈥�, since RAS is not an acronym unless you pronounce it as a word.
Whatever you call it, the phenomenon is much more widespread than we
imagined, and our postbag has been bulging with examples. Some of the more
common usages that readers have drawn our attention to include SAM missile
(surface to air . . . ), AC current (alternating . . . ), DC Comics (detective .
. . ), RISC computers (reduced instruction set . . . ) and, in Britain, the
annual TUC congress (trades union . . . ).
Other readers have noticed examples of double RAS syndrome, such as
Microsoft鈥檚 NTFS file system, and one which many readers remember from the
1960s, Rhodesia鈥檚 unilateral declaration of UDI ( . . . independence). Those
same readers, incidentally, will also remember the eminent British politician of
the time, Rab Butler (Richard Austen . . . ), who is our only human example of
RAS syndrome.
Meanwhile, reader Debbie Rudder swears she heard someone say 鈥減ersonal PIN
number鈥� recently, while Rachel Padman says that in her laboratory people
habitually refer to 鈥渓iquid LPG gas鈥� (the 鈥淧鈥� stands for petroleum) and Anthony
Massam heard an American TV commentator refer to the 鈥淏ritish BBC
肠辞谤辫辞谤补迟颈辞苍鈥�.
So far, the only example of triple RAS syndrome we have is a company called
NZI Insurance New Zealand Ltd.
And that鈥檚 not all. Reader Joe Oldak points out that RAS syndrome is so
deeply rooted in us we have a tendency to see it even when it isn鈥檛 there. In
Britain, for example, we take our cars for their annual 鈥淢OT鈥� rather than an
鈥淢OT test鈥�. We do this, he says, because we assume that the 鈥淭鈥� in MOT stands
for test, so 鈥渢est鈥� is redundant and needn鈥檛 be said. But MOT actually stands
for the (now defunct) Ministry of Transport.
Casting the net wider still, reader John Murray reminds us that an ultimate
example of RAS syndrome occurs in Scott Adams鈥檚 Dilbert strip, where Dilbert
finds himself in charge of 鈥渢he TTP project鈥�. The TTP here stands for 鈥渢he TTP
project鈥�, where the TTP in turn stands for . . . and so on to infinity.
Finally, some readers have pointed to a related syndrome involving whole
words. It usually occurs where different languages meet, as in salsa sauce, Rio
Grande River, River Avon and the Ecole School of Classical Ballet in Sydney.
Trevor Magnusson has an especially fine example: he recalls that during the
conflict in Bosnia, reporters commented on the destruction of Mostar鈥檚 鈥渙ld
Stary Most bridge鈥�. Stary means 鈥渙ld鈥� in the local language and
most means 鈥渂ridge鈥�.
Our thanks to all who have sent in these and many more examples of this odd
phenomenon. We think, however, we will now leave it for a while.
READER Jon Musker鈥檚 two-year-old has an old cast-off PC and he loves using
Microsoft Word to practise his alphabet. He only knows a few letters, so he will
often fill a paragraph with something like
鈥减辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辫辞辞辞辞辞辞辞辞辞辞辫辫辫辫辫锄锄锄锄锄锄锄锄锄锄辫辫辫辫辫补补补补鈥�.
Musker noticed the other day that Microsoft Word had underlined this random
gibberish in green鈥攕uggesting it had detected a flaw in his son鈥檚 grammar.
Intrigued, he right-clicked to see what suggestion it had to convert the passage
into grammatically accurate English. It suggested capitalising the first P.
THE insurance scheme offered by the utility company Thames Water entices
customers with this promise: 鈥減ermanent repairs fully guaranteed for 12
尘辞苍迟丑蝉鈥�
FINALLY, reader Will Cairns has a suggestion for the genetic engineering
industry. Why not put flounder genes into potatoes, he asks. Then they鈥檇 be
easier to peel because all the eyes would be on one side. Boom boom!