Paper Monitor
10:58 UK time, Friday, 7 March 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Forget raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, if newspapers had to list a few of their favourite things then acronyms would be right up there. This love affair has spawned a whole vocabulary of its own, with words like Neet (Not in Employment, Education or Training) and Fids (Fully Involved Dad) regularly gracing news pages.
But acronyms that really have editors singing like a Von Trapp are those that neatly fit the stereotype of the parasitic, irresponsible 30-something who is frittering away all their money - and usually their parents' savings too - with no regard for their future.
We've had Kippers (Kids in Parents’ Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings) and now we have the Tiswas generation (Thirty-Somethings Without Any Savings). This group of under-35s are heading for "financial meltdown", according to the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
It's the nostalgic element that makes it such a winner, the only problem being for an entirely different generation. Surely anyone who used to watch the anarchic 1970s Saturday morning television show is firmly in their 40s? Would your average under-35-year-old Brit have any idea who The Phantom Flan Flinger was? Oh well, let's not let accuracy get in the way of a good acronym.
Sometimes you wonder if it's someone's job to simply come up with such words and catchphrases and then the story is written to order - or indeed a whole campaign. Take the government's "All Cisterns Go" initiative to safeguard the great British loo, taking up the whole of page three in the Times. In this case it doesn't matter which came first, the name or the initiative, it's absolute genius. Give that person a pay rise.
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