A Brief 'Thanx' To MTV

THE ABBREVIATION of the American Attention Span.

There's been a deluge of articles on the subject. Treatises on why MTV and USA Today are responsible for Americans' diminishing powers of concentration have saturated the press.

Young people--all but the dweebiest of news dweebs--can't stand to sit through the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour when they can watch flashy, clippy MTV news. And USA Today, with its hip graphics and "concise" stories, appeals to lazy readers. Thumbing through inky pages for a news story's continuation requires too much energy.

Our laziness and short attention spans extend to our daily speech and written work as well. Everything, it seems, is abbreviated into those sometimes inane, sometimes clever acronyms. Or else orthodox spellings are altered: "thank you" is now "thanx," "because" becomes "'cuz."

And now, President Bush and his handlers have decided to cater to the phenomenon. They've realized that "No New Taxes" and "A Thousand Points of Light," though catchy, just won't cut it in '92.

To carft speeches that are more likely to grab attention, Bush has hired Steve Provost, vice president of public affairs at KFC,nee Kentucky Fried Chicken. Given his connection to organizations that sleeken unwieldy phrases, Provost's work promises to yield some interesting Bushisms.

Maybe something like this will come out of the president's heartland stump sessions:

My fellow Americans, vote for me, GHWB.

Who cares if I broke that old promise of NNT?

Remember when we kicked Saddam's butt in the glorious PG?

Things aren't perfect on the home front, but look, those TPL are still shining across the USA.

Thanx for your support.

I'M AN ABBREVIATION cynic, not one of those trendy, commentary-on-American-life-seeking, McLaughlin Group-windbag-aspirant media types. But while I thought I'd have wonderful new insight on Americans' diminishing powers of concentration, I've sat here all day, distractedly typing sentence fragments, searching for a new take on the topic.

You see, even I am an example of the trend. And it doesn't really bother me in real life. Who feels like enunciating the nasally "Au Bon Pain," when you can spit out "ABP" in just one breath? I don't.

There are, of course, times when the proliferation of abbreviations and acronyms becomes absurd. For instance:

"Cut that graf so we can fit a weather pic on the front and put that cutline in caps and ital will ya?"

Translation: "Will you delete that paragraph so we can fit another picture of a cute baby on the front page? And don't forget to capitalize and italicize the caption."