Summer Classics- Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

Mark Twain needs no introduction.  And fair warning, The Complete Short Stories took me a year to read, not a summer.  On the plus side, this collection took "complete" to heart.  Even stories that appear in longer books, but can be read stand-alone, are included.

The stories range from rambling, plotless tales to morality stories usually about the the perils of assumptions and misplaced faith.  Frequently, the story you start reading seems abandoned and you end in a completely different story altogether.  Almost all of the stories are told first person, ala the oral tradition Twain's prose mimics.  He also regularly interrupts the narrator as the author, giving his work an audited feel.

There are a few stories worth specific note.  Everyone familiar with Twain will know "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."  His first short story, it is classic Twain, but a poor representation of the breadth of Twain's style.  There are shockingly few stories that have the same countrified narration.  Twain satirizes every walk of life in America and Europe across history, and, although he brings a distinct Americanism to his writing, he comes off more cosmopolitan than you would expect.

"A Double Barreled Detective Story" is unusual because Twain interrupts to explain a joke, an interruption that lasts for several pages.  The reader is unsure if Twain's stated reasons are true (he says people wrote him about the paragraph, but there is no way to tell real author's notes from contrived ones) and why the story even needed the joke to begin with because the style shift is very dramatic for a single unconnected paragraph.  Here is the offending (yet brilliant) paragraph for your perusal (the less obvious contradiction is in bold).

"It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the wingless wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the empty sky a solitary esophagus slept on motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God."

Taken as a whole, Twain's short stories read like Aesop's fables, Grimm's fairy tales, and PG Wodehouse thrown in a blender, although even that doesn't hint at all the genres he spoofs.  While no single story compares to the finesse of plot and character found in his classic novels, there may not be a better Twain primer in existence.

Acronyms, abbrevs, and redundancy

In our fast paced society, we can't be bothered to spell it all out—literally.  We have invented a new shorthand with txt-ing and abbrevs (thank you SoCal) and acronyms. And we usually know what is meant. Mostly. Well, you may not know what RSVP stands for, but you understand the concept. And eventually, as in the case of RSVP, you see the letters as the concept, which introduces a few interesting problems.

RAS syndrome is the redundant use of one or more words that make up an acronym. For example, the syndrome literally reads Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome. Other examples include PIN number (personal identification number number) and ATM machine (automatic teller machine machine).  In the case of PIN, i can understand needing to add a clarifying word to the acronym to separate it from a pin or pen.  For other reasons behind this phenomenon check out the Wikipedia page.

The other problem as I see it has less to do with stylistic blunders and more with being bamboozled as consumers.  Everyone should be aware that msn is an acronym for Microsoft Network. But using their acronym seems to me to soften the impact of their expansion into other media (if you are the sort of person who dislikes big corporations).  And this isn't me pointing a finger at Microsoft, because most people know that one; many companies do this.  When SBC (now merged with AT&T) took over various smaller companies they changed their name to its acronym and then claimed it wasn't an acronym of Southwestern Bell Company and in fact didn't stand for anything.  The break-up and re-merging of the Bell companies is rather interesting but a bit off-topic for this post.

I don't really want to spend more time discussing name changes, mergers, and monopolies, although in an American acronym discussion these topics are frequent and extend back for decades.  Instead, here are several common acronyms I've collected and their meanings.  I'll leave you to spot the irony and age of  some of them.

AAA/ Triple-A— American Automobile Association
ABC— American Broadcasting Company
AT&T—American Telephone and Telegraph
BMW— Bavarian Motor Works
CBS—Columbia Broadcasting System
CNN—Cable News Network
DVD—digital video disc (some of these I hope are familiar) OR digital versatile disc
DVR— digital video recorder
FDA— Food and Drug Administration
LASER (yes, laser)— light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
LP—long-playing [record album]
M&M's—NOT AN ACROMYN, the letters do stand for founders Mars and Murrie
MGM— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
NBC—National Broadcasting Company
NRA— National Rifle Association
PRC— People's Republic of China (you might find this on a clothes tag)
RADAR—radio detection and ranging
RSVP—Respondez sil vous plait (please reply, making 'please rsvp' redundant)
SONAR— sound navigation and ranging
SMS—short message service (aka texting and other stuff sent to your phone)
TBS— Turner Broadcasting System
TLC— The Learning Chanel or tender loving care
TNT— Turner Network Television
USDA— United States Department of Agriculture
VCR—videocassette recorder
VH1— Video Hits One
VHS— video home system

PS- most of the above are actually initialism. Turns out there are terms for different types of acronyms. Search acronym on Wikipedia for more on the differences.