Welcome Back

In February this year, I launched a blog called Cheeseman Begins, and published my first two articles. Such readers as I managed to secure would be forgiven for thinking I'd given up after that, as I haven't published anything since! The reasons for this are threefold, and boring:

• 2021 has been busy and dramatic for me - could definitely have been worse, but it could have been better

• I've been drafting articles which seemingly have no ending. I have so much to say on some subjects that I've been writing dissertation-length pieces, that need trimming down or splitting into multiple articles

• I've been using Wordpress, which is a massive pain in the arse. I finally got sick of it, and have relocated my site to Wix, unable to resist renaming it in the process

You may be thinking, 'Cheeseman, I don't care why you've been away for half a year.' To make it worth your while visiting this article, here's a list of some of my favourite acronyms and initialisms:

Scuba: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

SCART: The SCART audio and video connector we all had in our TVs until the advent of HDMI is named after Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs, the French organisation that invented it.

Haribo: Hans Riegel Bonn. The German confectionary company takes its name from its founder and the city in which he was based.

Laser: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

ABBA: The acronym is formed from the first letters of each group member's first name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid.

Tesco: The Tesco name first appeared in 1924, after founder Jack Cohen purchased a shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and combined those three initials with the first two letters of his surname.

CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Those online tests you have to do to prove you aren't a robot.

BASE Jumping: BASE is an acronym that stands for the four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: Buildings, Antennae, Spans (bridges), and Earth (cliffs).

Lego: The name Lego is derived from the Danish words 'leg godt,' which means 'play well'.

SNAFU: Famously dating back to WWII, this stands for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

Anyway, thanks for reading and welcome back, old chum.