Building on their tradition as copyists i suppose, a group of Cistercian monks is supporting themselves by selling imaging supplies under the name LaserMonks.

You see, we're not out to make a huge profit for ourselves. We're real monks.

How could you not buy your toner from guys like that?

11:57:04 PM #    comment []  trackback []

Martin Roth looks at the distribution of the Bible in a piece from last fall called The Bible vs. the Ikea Catalogue – Which is Winning Hearts? I never would have thought of this as a contender for one of the most widely distributed publications! No contest as far as the content, though ...
11:40:16 PM #    comment []  trackback []

We were talking recently about what the first recorded acronym might be. I thought it must be a relatively modern invention, following on the need perhaps for more brief ways to reference company names.

When i went looking, i found confirmation of my belief that acronyms are recent but was also dismayed by what i found. This page claims "The first acronym was only recorded in 1892. " but gives no details. I found another page (which i can't now recover) that claimed it was a racial epithet that had the dubious distinction of being first.

But i was missing an obvious example thousands of years old, which is still in use today. Early Christians, persecuted by the Romans, used the fish as a secret symbol of their faith to avoid detection. The Greek word for fish (transliterated into English) is "ichthus", which also represented to them an acronym for Iesous CHristos THeou Uios Soier, "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior". I'd still like to find more solid information as to the first attested use of this acronym.

Acronyms are one of those areas of language where imagined history abounds ... None of the acronym examples on the Urban Legends page is designated as true.

10:20:22 PM #    comment []  trackback []