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To be honest, DDT is like "IBM". It might mean "International Business Machines", but many people wouldn't immediately recognize it unless the acronym is used (
by gattilorenz 6y ago
To be honest, DDT is like "IBM". It might mean "International Business Machines", but many people wouldn't immediately recognize it unless the acronym is used (while the opposite is true: if you know what the acronym stands for, you usually know the acronym as well).
And I'm sure Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane wouldn't add much for most people that read a newspaper :)
- LittlePeter 6y agoEven from the context, it was not clear to me what DDT was. I suspected it was some chemical. I would have appreciated a sentence or two explaining why it is bad and what it does. What IBM is would typically be clear from the context: "IBM reported record loss in 2nd quarter of 2020".
- NeutronStar 6y agoWhat DDT is would typically be clear from the context: "L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground". What do you think we dump? > Even from the context, it was not clear to me what DDT was. I suspected it was some chemical. I would have appreciated a sentence or two explaining why it is bad and what it does. TFA is explaining quite well. Do your homework instead of going straight to the comment?
- jameshart 6y agoA sentence like this one in paragraph 7? > From 1947 to 1982, the nation’s largest manufacturer of DDT — a pesticide so powerful that it poisoned birds and fish — was based in Los Angeles.
- LittlePeter 6y agoYou're right. My expectations we wrong. I expected short concise news article, but this seems to be a long-form article. My bad.
- Izkata 6y agoSome decades ago, DDT was practically its brand name in the US, because of how well it worked on mosquitos. People used it in their backyards.
- jeltz 6y agoMaybe this is a generational thing because I did not think that DDT would need any explanation. It at least used to be a household name which everyone recognized.