#352 LED Concentration

Who would have thought in one generation that I would have to learn so many letters? Back when I was young and IBM was such a hit, there was also the FBI and the CIA. There was even CREEP, which stood for the Committee to RE-Elect the President. I kid you not. I figured at some point they would run out of initials and be done with it. Then they started naming cars with random ones like CRV and/or models of cars like LX and DX and/or genera of cars like SUVs and it got all crazy again. Oddly, SUV, which has all the characteristics of being a full-blown acronym—it has a vowel in the middle and you can pronounce it—never emerged as such. I guess because people had a hard time thinking of huge gas-guzzling urban assault vehicles as suvs. Sounds more like one of those pre-soaped and pre-wetted throwaway cleaning towels. Honey, could you please pick up some suvs at the market. These swipes aren’t nearly as swell as the swiffers. Then, computer-eze entered the fray with HTML and URL and now, the ever confusing—at least to me—LED and LCD. I know they both involve light. LED, for some strange reason, is again not a pronounced acronym. Like, there are five leds in this combo penlight/mechanical pencil. Good idea. Our language is already littered with words that are miscombobulated with variations of spelling and pronunciation. L-e-a-d- is led or leed depending on context. You can be led down the aisle or someone can lead you astray with too much lead in your drinking water. So LED is spelled and pronounced L E D. I think LED means light emitting diode. LCD is Liquid Crystal Display. Or perhaps light crystal diode or light carrying doodad. It’s all so confusing to someone who was born when computers filled a room and Christmas lights were the size of your nose.
But for all our electronic wizardry when it comes to warning lights and electronic readouts on our communication devices we have reached a point of technological backlash. The cellphone, my perennial essay whipping post, has done it again. At least so I presume. It being my nature to lay every misbegotten travesty in the 21st century at the doorstep of the cellphone it was no surprise¾when I heard the following statistic¾that it didn’t take me long to finger the culprit. Traffic deaths are up 14% this year over last year and they are at the highest level since 1990. Gee, what’s different about traffic today compared to 1990? Oh yeah, that thing that was supposed to make highways safer cause if you broke down you could pull over and use it to call for help. Oh well, now if you accidentally rear-end and kill some innocent driver cause you were speeding and gabbing on your phone you can speed-dial your insurance company and file your version of the story first. And since he’s dead anyhow, he’s what we used to call S.O.L.
America, ya gotta love it.