LOL,CEI, CIO, CFO, COO, CLO, MDR, NABISCO Do you speak acronym?

How, why and where did we start speaking in sets of capital letters?

LOL began life as “laughing out loud”, a way for internet chatters to explain a long pause in typing. The French too play with text-speak. Though many will happily import LOL from English, they may also write MDR, mort de rire, “dead from laughing”.

Walk into any business and a cloud of three-lettered titles surrounds you. The one who used to be just the boss, or the managing director, now styles himself the CEO - chief executive officer. This alone would be one thing, but it turned into a viral infection: CIO, CTO, CFO, COO, CLO, and so on, for what used to be the heads of technology, finance and operations, and the company lawyer. They all form the so-called C-suite. Brand managers also follow the trend. In 1901 the National Biscuit Company sought a trademark for a new short form of its name—NABISCO. The “co” trend took off, especially with oil companies (Texaco, Conoco, Sunoco), using a different kind of acronym, one that pulls together first syllables, not just letters.