Putting to rest any question of whether Democrats were happy with Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi returning to her role as speaker of the House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries proclaimed that members of the party were “down with NDP.” It’s not just Pelosi who is enjoying the rare sense of importance that comes with being known by one’s monogram. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is “RBG,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “AOC,” and, of course, Hillary Rodham Clinton is “HRC.”
Since when have nonpresidents been recognized, JFK-style, by their initials? For that matter, why do presidents enjoy that curious courtesy?
According to The Copy-Editing and Headline Handbook by Barbara Ellis, even though Teddy Roosevelt had been dead for more than a decade, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for president, newspapermen worried that readers might confuse one for the other if a headline merely referred to “Roosevelt” doing this or that. “FDR” not only solved that problem, but it also did so with an admirable economy of type.
Identifying someone solely by his initials quickly proved to be a sort of informal honorific capriciously awarded. Ellis notes that there is favoritism involved in the monogram moniker business. The media more readily choose to use initials when referring to presidents they prefer. “FDR,” “JFK,” “LBJ” — even “HST,” of all haberdashers — get the treble-letter treatment. Though it was a nickname rather that initials, many headline writers have liked Ike. “Affection or awe of presidents,” Ellis writes, “seems to determine who copy editors find worthy of initials. They have denied them to Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.”
I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the men and women of the press will not find it necessary to use the chummy shortcut “DJT.”
The newfound popularity of initializing names of the politically important got going in earnest with a 2015 biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The title — Notorious RBG — conferred on the Supreme Court justice the political heft of a president and the street cred of rapper Biggie Smalls (RIP).
Then, it was newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s turn. No doubt this reflects the media’s outsize affection for her. But I rather suspect that it is also because, in the middle of a cable gabfest, “AOC” trips off the tongue easier than “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
What about the rest of us? Do we need to pump up our own importance by asking to be called by our initials?
Count me out. It’s not that my initials are disastrous. I wouldn’t be the sort of presidential wannabe saddled with some name like David Oliver Anderson. Still, my name, Eric Thomas Felten, shares initials with a common financial instrument, Exchange-Traded Funds.
But at least, when it comes to my monogram, I guess I can take some solace that my first name isn’t Wendall.
