Yes I know there is a new language out there eg. “LOL” (I used to think that meant ‘lots of love’) and BTW and even at my old age I have adapted to it.

iNews Cayman abbreviates  a lot in our news items but we at least state what the original means and most are really long names of organisations, companies, etc.

I am talking about abbreviating short words into 2 or 3 letters. Half the time I try and decipher them and I can’t because these two or three letters could mean a variety of things and any of them will make some sort of sense.

The emails I get contain so many I don’t understand any of them and the same goes for text messages.

Children and teenagers have been warned to be careful of chat rooms. Us mature folks (alright us old ‘uns) shouldn’t go because I can assure you , you will not understand a thing.

Have you seen all those television ads, especially the ones for prescription drugs? Quite frankly, I don’t know if I’m suffering from them or not? The long abbreviations  for all the diseases you might be suffering from are meaningless. In tiny print you actually do get what the abbreviation means but it flashes off before you can actually read it.

A relation of our family suffered from emphysema. Do you know what it is now called? C.O.P.D. “Are you suffering from COPD?” a man asks you in a very worried voice.  If you are, you need this medication. Never mind all the life threatening complications that you can get from it that are rattled off in great speed in the hope you can’t understand. Emphysema does not appear anywhere in the advert because it is now a symptom of COPD.

This is only one example. And a lot of us men are suffering from ED. ED? Impotence? Yes. But it’s now erectile dysfunction. But a certain pill will make things fine when that certain moment “comes at an unexpected time” like a certain smile from your beautiful partner (it might not be your wife so the woman isn’t called anything). Never mind the pill might cause you all sorts of things like a heart attack and/or blindness and every muscular pain imaginable. So at some time in our life, men we will get ED.

Now comes the reason for this Editorial.

Last Sunday, I went to church with my wife in the evening to a service. It has been a very long time since I have been with my wife to her church let alone in the evening. I am an Anglican and she is a (another denomination – if I say which you will know the church I am talking about and I don’t want to embarrass them), so the two don’t often meet.

I went because both Joan and her granddaughter were singing. It was a service commemorating the end of the church’s CD sessions that had been going on for a number of months. The evening was a talent and sharing service and I did enjoy it very much.

Except.

This CD business. I at first didn’t know what the congregation members were talking about. Even the minister talked about CD’s. The young members said CD’s. The middle aged mentioned CD’s. Even Joan, when she spoke uttered the letters CD.

My first thought was Compact Disc. I thought the monthly sessions had been recorded on CD’s. As it went on I realised that it wasn’t and struggling came to the conclusion it meant “Christian Devotion.”

That was clever of me, wasn’t it?

Wrong. I was wrong. I found out on my way home in Joan’s car that it meant “Christian Discipleship”.

I even got up at the end of the service and sort of aplogised for thinking CD stood for compact disc and said “Christian Devotion” should have been first on my mind.” No one corrected my mistake.

Afterwards, and thinking more about it, I was wrong to apologise. When the powerful name “Christian” is relegated to a ‘C’ and “Devotion/Discipleship” is a ‘D’ I strongly feel something is wrong. It’s terrible.

JCDFOS will be the next headline at Easter (or will that be East?) or even JCDOTC. JCBIAM will be the Christmas (sorry Xmas – though that is probably too long – how about XM?).

Grrrrrrrrr.

Please tell me WYT.