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“What’s in a name?”

Many years ago (circa 1969), when I first ventured into what is now my livelihood, acronyms always meant only one thing. e.g. IBM meant International Business Machines, PTF was Program Temporary Fix, MFCM was known to be the ever-tempermental Mult-Function Card Machine. (If you’re to young to know that a card was an input medium, please schedule a trip to the Smithsonian before continuing).

In those days, RPG  translated into Report Program Generator, a structured programming language for IBM (see above) mainframe computers. That was 40 years ago & the language is still going strong among us “Old Timers”. So imagine my surprise, when during a recent visit to Barnes & Noble, I happened upon RPG Programming Using XNA   Being the naive elder that I am, I thought it was a guide for mainframe RPG.

Imagine my surprise, when I opened the book, and nothing  looked even vaguely familiar. As I continued to read, I found that RPG, in this case, did not refer to my beloved programming language, but RPG stood for Role Player Game. While my son & his buddies are heavily into online gaming, I draw the line at anything more complex than PONG. And the thought of programming an online game gave me a headache which is still with me today. I immediately placed the reference manual back into it’s cozy spot on the shelf,  treated myself to a Starbucks hot chocolate, & went home to try to determine exactly when I lost touch with current technology.

My biggest concern now is what other acronyms that I thought I knew, have taken on new & sinister meanings? Is NFL still National Football League, or does it have some diabolical interpretation that I’ll only find by accident?