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Show TOO BUSY FOR LONG TITLES Germans Sensibly Abbreviate Names Which They Realize Cause Much Waste of Time. Long-winded German names are something of a trial to the world at large, but the Germans themselves appear ap-pear to have found the remedy, says the Scientific American. In 1909 an international aeronautical exposition was organized at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Its full name in German was "Internationale Luftschiffahrt-Ausstel-lung." After being abbrebiated to "I. L. A.," this ultimately became "Ha;" and as the "Ila" the exposition has since been universally known. In like manner the "Allgemeine Luftfahrtzeug-Ausstellung" Luftfahrtzeug-Ausstellung" held last year In Berlin was known as the "Ala;" and now we hear of the "Damnu," which, to the' busy man, is a happy substitute for "Deutsche Ausschuss fur den mathe-matischen mathe-matischen und naturwissenschaft-lichen naturwissenschaft-lichen Unterricht." "Imuk," which signifies sig-nifies Internationale mathematische Unterrichts-Kommission and "Datech," a condensation of Deutsche Ausschuss fur technische Schulen. Of course, this method of syncopation syncopa-tion has its limits! since many combinations combi-nations of initials are unpronouncable, while others might be too grotesque to be palatable. On the other hand, it seems likely that in future the names of many expositions, societies and the like will be deliberately selected with reference to such abbreviation. |