My last post reminded me of a story from my past that has some similarities. Fortunately, I don’t see myself getting as angry while writing this one.
In my former professional life, I worked at a university doing a few different things. For about two of those years, I served as an academic advisor for the college office. A big part of that job was knowing where to find all of the information so that I could direct students to those publications and show them the answers to their questions. Ya know, the whole “teach a man to fish” thing. There were four main ones I went to on a daily basis. First was the General Catalog, which had information on all courses offered by the university (including descriptions and prerequisites). Second was the Schedule of Classes, a quarter-specific publication that said what was being offered then, when those classes met, etc. Third was the General Education booklet, listing what courses fulfilled what requirements. And fourth was the Guide to Undergraduate Studies, which had some information on specific non-GE requirements. The problem with that last one was that all of its info was already in the General Catalog and it also duplicated a lot of items listed in the GE booklet. Finally, someone had the bright idea to combine the last two. It made a lot of sense and would save money in the process, so I was all for it.
“But what should we call that new resource?” the college wondered. Without being asked, I threw my hat in the ring and started thinking up names. Not only do I really enjoy those kinds of exercises, but I was about to leave the university setting after a total of nine years, and it would’ve meant a lot to me to “live on” via something as silly as a publication name. I only had one important internal criterion: it couldn’t be anything that would open the door for redundancies. For example, since I hate when people say “ATM machine” or “PIN number,” I had to make sure the name I came up with would make that abomination impossible. In practice, that meant that if I were making an acronym, it couldn’t end with “guide,” “booklet,” or “brochure.” Technically, I wouldn’t want a word like that anywhere in the acronym, because if people had called the Guide to Undergraduate Studies “the GUS guide,” I’d still want to punch them in their inaccurate faces. With that ground rule firmly in place, I started thinking. First, I wrote down every word that might make sense to fit into an acronym. This was all for the College of Letters and Science, so I put those three capitalized words down. (There was an organization on campus already called CLAS, so that was out of the question – in case you were wondering.) I put down an R for requirements, G and E for General Education, and a few more until my sheet of paper looked like I was trying to find the bonus answer in the Jumble. (Somewhere my mom is giving an understanding nod.)
When the dust settled, I had a front-runner: “The LASER,” short for “Letters And Science Educational Requirements.” I wasn’t 100% on board with promoting the “and” to capitalized status, but I was willing to live with it because everything else worked so well; it was cool-sounding and an accurate representation of what one would find in those pages. I walked into the Dean’s office and made my pitch. I was confident, presenting it as if it were hands-down the best option he’d see. I read it to him and handed him a piece of paper with the name and the spelled-out version. He cocked his head a little, and I didn’t like that. Clearly something wasn’t sitting quite right to him. Was it too modern sounding? Too science fictiony? Then he spoke: “I’m not sure about the E.” I explained that since it had all of the GE requirement plus the University Requirements, the umbrella of “Educational” made sense to me. “It’s not that,” he said, “It’s just that there’s also an Education Department, and I think that could get confusing.” I saw his point but didn’t fully agree with it. Maybe I was naive, but I thought students would be able to differentiate the two. “What else could we put in that spot?” he asked. That was a good sign because it told me he wasn’t against the name itself, so we brainstormed together. “Well,” I said, “They’re all ‘undergraduate’ requirements. I don’t like the way L-A-S-U-R looks as much, but it would still be pronounced the same way.” He didn’t really like that one either, even though it fit the bill. I had an idea, debated internally whether to speak it or not, and then went for it: “What about ‘Academic’ instead? My only hesitation with that is that I’d still want it to be pronounced like ‘laser’ and not have people say ‘lay zar.'” He thought for a minute and then said, “Letters And Science Academic Requirements…that works. Let’s do that.”
The new and improved academic resource wouldn’t be coming out until the following academic year (once I’d already be gone), so I did my part in telling people about the new name and how it should be pronounced. When the time came to leave, I mentally crossed my fingers and hoped that people would take the right path. After all, what’s the point in creating an acronym that spells out a real word if the word isn’t going to be pronounced that way? Well, a year later, my friend Suzanne told me that people were largely calling it the “lay zar” but that she was doing her part in correcting them and trying to right the ship. That was the last I’d heard of it until my last post reminded me of this story. I emailed Suzanne and asked for a status report on “laser” versus “lay zar.” I wrote that my gut told me people probably fell into saying ‘lay zar’ but that I hoped it wasn’t the case. She replied with two main points: One, she corrects people and lectures them on the right pronunciation but it has little to no effect. Two, it’s my old L&S colleagues who are to blame. “They call it ‘lay zar’ ALL the time,” she wrote. Well that’s just great.
I’m torn in three directions with this whole thing. On one hand, I’m really pleased that I made a little mark in the world of academic advising after spending so much time and energy engrossed in its minutia. On the other hand, it bugs me that people are walking around calling it essentially by the wrong name. And on the magical third hand, I can’t blame them. It looks like ‘lay zar,’ so if they don’t hear it pronounced the right way from the very beginning, it’s really not their fault. Should I have pushed for “LASUR” instead of half-heartedly offering it as a suggestion? I still don’t like the way that looks, but is that more or less important than how it’s said? I really don’t know. I guess I should just be glad that people aren’t also being redundant and talking about their “lay zar requirements.”
