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Agreed, these backronym bill names are obnoxious at best.
by RankingMember 1y ago
Agreed, these backronym bill names are obnoxious at best.
- rkomorn 1y agoI used to think so, but now I think they're just intended to make it easy to refer to the bill in a context people can recall quickly.
- RankingMember 1y agoThe ones that really stick in my craw are the 1984-esque ones like the PATRIOT act.
- rkomorn 1y agoCAN-SPAM was arguably well named but it unfortunately did not can spam. To me it always read like "oh so we CAN spam people".
- JoshTriplett 1y agoWhich is an entirely accurate interpretation.
- int_19h 1y agoThey're intended to be propaganda soundbites. The point is that people use them to refer to the bill because it's much easier than using the full title or describing what the bill actually does, and in doing so, they inadvertently propagate a specific perspective on the nature of the bill. "PATRIOT" act etc are good examples.
- quesera 1y ago> they inadvertently propagate a specific perspective I think it's often, maybe always, quite advertent. :)
- rkomorn 1y agoAgreed but at the same time, "everything" out of congress is propaganda sound bites, so I'm not going to pick on backronyms in particular. Having a short monicker for a bill remains useful. It's not like non-backronym bills in congress have names that accurately reflect what they seek to achieve.
- int_19h 1y agoOther countries do just fine with numbered bills.
- rkomorn 1y agoIn media? The non-US examples I know (my home country and where I live now) either refer to laws/proposals based on sponsor name or topic, or (when passed), the date it was passed. Cursory googling about the UK suggests it's mostly either naked acts or "law of XYZ", but numbers. The act names and backronyms are for public consumption.