If you haven’t seen the movie 'Anchorman', the lamp thing will be lost on you, and if you don’t know that the ‘USA PATRIOT’ part of the legislative act is an acronym, then this whole post will be an enlightening experience. Firstly though if you haven’t seen the movie Anchorman, go, go now.
This post is inspired by the news of a proposal announced this week - "Senate Banking Committee members U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Doug Jones (D-AL), and Mike Rounds (R-SD) today unveiled draft bipartisan legislation to improve corporate transparency, strengthen national security, and help law enforcement combat illicit financial activity being carried out by terrorists, drug and human traffickers, and other criminals."
... Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act.
It is known as the ILLICIT CASH Act, and you already know why it’s in capital letters! That’s because it’s another marvellously descriptive and creative acronym, The Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act. Wow, just take a second to savour that. Now, whilst that get us financial crime folks all geared up and motivated, this is nothing new. The proposals for US legislation are choc-a-bloc with these insightful and sometimes cringeworthy works of wordsmithery. This proposed act is quite something and it has significant bipartisan backing(1), I am not going into detail here as this post is about the art of the acronym but I hope it gets through for consideration (and that Canada are inspired by it). It's been done before but below are some of my favourite legislative acronyms, and they are works of true word-mastery (2).
We start with the first and my personal favourite because it’s one I know and how I became aware of this whole art form. Honestly I don’t know how many of the list have been passed or enacted but I gather all were proposed, and I love that. It is whimsical and fun, often hilarious and while light-hearted it's serious business nonetheless.
USA PATRIOT - Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act 2001.
PHEASANT - Protecting Honest, Everyday Americans from Senseless And Needless Taxes Act of 2013 (I think they meant peasant - oof).
SUCCEED - Strengthen and Unite Communities with Civics Education and English Development Act of 2013
METRICS - Measuring and Evaluating Trends for Reliability, Integrity, and Continued Success Act of 2013.
BEER - Brewers Excise and Economic Relief Act of 2013 - (editors note: Very Important)
DATA - Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2013.
DIPLOMA - Developing Innovative Partnerships and Learning Opportunities that Motivate
Achievement Act. (Also a favourite of mine).
REFUND - Returned Exclusively For Unpaid National Debt Act.
WAGES - Working for Adequate Gains for Employment in Services Act.
LIBERTY - Letting Insurance Benefit Everyone Regardless of Their Youth Act.
Superb work there, I'd like to shake the hands of the fine lyricists responsible for the above. However, I am working on a post/article about AI (which is taking a while to research as I am merely a man) and I cannot help but think that some of these acronyms are AI created because they are just too damn good. Enjoy browsing the list on the Atlantic below (2), and then creating your own - you know you will.
Al.
#moneylaundering #aml #antimoneylaundering #kyc #financialcrime #crime #organisedcrime #dirtymoney #thedirtstring #illicitcashact #USA #acronyms
Reference, Links and Related Articles.
https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?id=50AAECEE-2779-47E0-91D6-BC19030D81AF
Comentarios