There was a time, not so long ago, when being ill was simpler, certainly more private. One took a funny turn, had a case of the nerves, felt poorly. Blame fell to the weather or old age or the bug going around, or some bad family blood lines.
Today, illness is a very public business--watching TV has become a living tour of the human body in pain-- and any malady worth talking about, real or imagined, has a serious-sounding acronym.
There’s RLS (restless legs syndrome), ED (erectile dysfunction), PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder). And don’t forget CPH (chronic prostate hypertrophy) and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Then there's MRSA to contend with, as well as CFS, ADD, UTI, COPD.
And if one of these bursts of initials should act up suddenly, we're off to the ER, formerly the emergency room.
We owe much of this to television, which has reinvented drug advertising around the notion that we're all suffering from some ailment if we could just put our finger on it. The acronyms make the case stick.
Once the domain of the military and government departments, acronyms are now the province of medical copywriters, and their work does not go unappreciated. We see so much drug advertising on TV because it works, encouraging viewers to visit their doctor with an ailment in need of treatment and just the drug to do it. In the early 1990s, drug makes spent some $500 million a year on advertising, but with the easing of rules regarding TV adverting, that's now risen to about $5 billion a year.
Acronyms play an important part. They serve to reduce longwinded, unwieldy medical terms to snappy, easy-to-remember phases.
Acronyms have authority. "They are trying to make the consumer feel that he or she has enough knowledge to lobby the physician to prescribe the drug,” observes Patrick Barwise, a management and marketing professor at London Business School.
It makes it sound like there is an enormous amount of science behind this product, says Barwise. “We have hundreds of people in white coats and lots of people with many degrees and this is what science says is your problem,” goes the thinking, he notes.
“Acronyms can enhance prestige," says Colleen Cotter, a lecturer in linguistics at the University of London. “An acronym can make it sound more official."
The widespread use of acronyms generally is a relatively modern phenomenon, according to Yigal Ben Efraim, founder and CEO of Abbreviations.com, a web site about abbreviations. It began in the 19th century thanks to growing literacy rates, but usage skyrocketed as the 20th century progressed.
“The rise in literacy, media, science and technology brought an enormous amount of new terms and definitions, which naturally required a shorthand form to ease their daily usage,” says Ben Efraim.
But relief may be on the way.
Abbreviations may soon be on the decline, at least in medical ads, and one branding expert in the field says it has already begun.
“We are now seeing less of the use of acronyms,” she says. “The trend in the industry is to be more transparent and open in how they engage with the consumers and prescribers because we are in a more open communications age.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, the new Will Ferrell comedy “Semi-Pro” finished first at the box office over the weekend, bringing in $15.2 million. Last week’s No. 1, “Vantage Point,” dropped to No. 2 with $13.0 million in ticket sales.
In DVD rentals for the week ended Feb. 24, according to IMDb.com, two new releases, “American Gangster” and “Michael Clayton,” finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, while “Gone Baby Gone” fell from No. 1 to No. 3.
On iTunes this morning, Flo Rida’s “Low” fell out of the top spot after 15 straight weeks at No. 1, replaced this week by Usher’s “Love in this Club.”
And in books, John Grisham’s “The Appeal” stayed at No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover fiction best-sellers list for the week ended Feb. 23, its fourth week in a row at No. 1, although it slipped to No. 3 on USA Today’s chart for the week ended Feb. 24.
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TOP MOVIES
Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of Feb. 29-March 2, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
MOVIE
|
Engagements
|
Box office (millions)
|
|
1
|
Semi-Pro (New Line)
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3,121
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$15.20
|
|
2
|
Vantage Point (Sony)
|
3,150
|
$13.00
|
|
3
|
The Spiderwick Chronicles (
Paramount)
|
3,654
|
$8.75
|
|
4
|
The Other Boleyn Girl (Sony)
|
1,166
|
$8.30
|
|
5
|
Jumper (Fox)
|
3,128
|
$7.60
|
|
6
|
Step Up 2 the Streets (
Buena Vista)
|
2,528
|
$5.71
|
|
7
|
Fool’s Gold (Warner Bros.)
|
2,845
|
$4.69
|
|
8
|
Penelope (
Summit Entertainment)
|
1,196
|
$4.01
|
|
9
|
No Country for Old Men (
Paramount Vantage, Miramax)
|
2,037
|
$4.01
|
|
10
|
Juno (Fox Searchlight)
|
1.631
|
$3.35
|
|
Source: Yahoo Movies
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IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS
Week ending February 24, 2008
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|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
American Gangster
|
-
|
|
2
|
Michael Clayton
|
-
|
|
3
|
Gone Baby Gone
|
1
|
|
4
|
We Own the Night
|
2
|
|
5
|
Rendition
|
-
|
|
6
|
The Brave One
|
3
|
|
7
|
In the
Valley of
Elah
|
-
|
|
8
|
Heya Fawda
|
-
|
|
9
|
The Game Plan
|
4
|
|
10
|
No Reservations
|
5
|
|
Source: IMDB
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|
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS
for week ended Monday, March 3, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
|
1
|
Love In This Club, Usher feat. Young Jeezy
|
|
2
|
Love Song, Sara Bareilles
|
|
3
|
Low, Flo Rida feat. T-Pain
|
|
4
|
No Air, Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown
|
|
5
|
Don’t Stop the Music, Rihanna
|
|
6
|
Elevator, Flo Rida feat. Timbaland
|
|
7
|
Feedback, Janet
|
|
8
|
See You Again, Miley Cyrus
|
|
Source: iTunes
|
|
NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending February 23, 2008
|
|
Fiction (hardback)
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
Weeks on chart
|
|
1
|
The Appeal by John Grisham
|
1
|
4
|
|
2
|
Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb
|
-
|
1
|
|
3
|
7th Heaven by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
|
2
|
3
|
|
4
|
Lady Killer by Lisa Scottoline
|
-
|
1
|
|
5
|
Duma Key by Stephen King
|
3
|
5
|
|
Nonfiction (hardback)
|
|
1
|
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
|
7
|
7
|
|
2
|
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
|
1
|
8
|
|
3
|
The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby
|
6
|
2
|
|
4
|
Reconciliation by Benazir Bhutto
|
2
|
2
|
|
5
|
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
|
-
|
1
|
|
Fiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
|
1
|
15
|
|
2
|
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
|
-
|
5
|
|
3
|
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
|
4
|
3
|
|
4
|
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
|
3
|
25
|
|
5
|
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
|
5
|
25
|
|
Nonfiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
1
|
57
|
|
2
|
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
2
|
56
|
|
3
|
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
|
3
|
9
|
|
4
|
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
|
-
|
84
|
|
5
|
90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
|
5
|
70
|
|
Source: New York Times
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA
TODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending February 24, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
|
1
|
|
2
|
Strangers in Death by J.D. Robb
|
-
|
|
3
|
The Appeal by John Grisham
|
2
|
|
4
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
6
|
|
5
|
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
|
16
|
|
6
|
7th Heaven by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
|
3
|
|
7
|
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
|
5
|
|
8
|
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney
|
8
|
|
9
|
Bratfest At Tiffanys: The Clique #9
|
4
|
|
10
|
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
|
11
|
|
Source:
USA Today
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