Inimical Acronyms
We all know how much acronyms mean to our "modern" bureaucracies! Could our civilization even exist without them? Certainly, communications would suffer from their lack... As much as I decry the tendencies to obfuscate by their use, I'm a fan of creative, informative "initialization".
My personal favorite (and likely yours) is Mutual Assured Destruction: MAD!
But sometimes the obvious choice is rejected, for -shall we say- telling too much... The recently prevalent example DEI bothers me for more than one reason.
While it stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion even a cursory examination shows an illogic to its construction: Shouldn't the progression be "diversity, inclusion, equity"? Surely diversity without inclusion wouldn't necessarily entail equity.
(Diversity and equity aren't antithetical, after all. Nor are diversity and equality.)
But the connotation of DIE are off-putting... And those of DEI, as even a smattering of Latin yields, are salubrious, reverential and -need I add- disingenuous?
One might even say diabolical!
Perhaps the construction DEI is meant to obscure the connotations of "equity" by conflating the common sense meaning of "fairness and impartiality" with the legal or financial usages...or both?
More likely, its use is derived from a Marxian perspective and ironical! Putting it -the I of "inclusion"- out its natural order defies the obvious intent: To dispel the notion of American "equality before the law"...
Something's amiss here. Departments of DEI routinely champion inequality, exclusion and dis-unity; and discord... Not only do words matter. Acronyms do, too. And not all are innocuous...