Trends for January 28, 2002

Lisa Ferguson

Monday, Jan. 28, 2002 | 8:26 a.m.

Hidden meanings

Finally, a board game for those of us with volumes of useless trivia sucking up space in our heads.

Enter Acronymity. Created by Minneapolis software salesman Scott Kuhne, the game puts to good use the true meanings of those convenient acronyms words "formed from the first (or first few) letters of a series of words," according to Webster's.

Acronymity is played by using 952 cards that sport acronyms or abbreviations of words from 18 categories including education, geography, government, real estate and entertainment.

Some examples: 3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. ZIP codes are code for Zoning Improvement Plan Codes.

The object is for players moving around the board to correctly name as many acronyms as they can. Oh, imagine the hours of fun just waiting to be had! The game is available at acronymity.com.

You may want to get primed to play, however, by visiting acronymfinder.com (a site unaffiliated with the game), where you can search acronyms and be delivered seemingly every potential meaning.

Bet you thought DOA meant "dead on arrival." Well, it does. But it also stands for "date of accident" (in the insurance business, anyway), "denial of age" and what we can only figure is a support group, Degenerate Overclockers Anonymous.

SOS is a gimme, right? Wrong. It's a misconception, the website explains, that the acronym means "save our ship" (the letters don't actually stand for anything). But they could be applied in place of "same ol' situation," "save our shows" (if you happen to be reading TV Guide), or for a band called Sex On Stage.

If you're "missing in action," you're considered MIA, but you may also be "made in America," watching the World Championship Wrestling team Misfits in Action, or standing at Miami International Airport.

Dine and dash

Turns out that most mornings, a good number of Americans are OTG ("on the go" made that one up ourselves; pretty good, huh?).

That's according to the results of a recent poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted for cereal-maker Chex, which has introduced Morning Mix, a "portable breakfast product" (sounds yummy).

Here's why this info is apparently pertinent:

It seems 75 percent of people partake in multi-tasking in order to get through their morning routines, tackling as many as four tasks at a time.

While 20 percent of respondents said breakfast in bed would be the "ideal way to start the day," 62 percent said they often eat and run, while one-third of people said they don't have enough time to eat at all.

Without citing specific numbers, the Chex poll results concluded that "most people" reported if they had an extra 15 minutes in the morning, they would grab some extra sleep. And they consider "laying out clothes the night before" a crucial time-saving tip.

Makes you wonder, though: Is that really the best excuse they could come up with for needing to eat breakfast out of a pouch?