Finding the
word "acrostic" in the news a great deal these days? Well, you're not alone. It's hard
to miss it.
IMPEACH was what Daniel Kammen recently spelled out with the first letter of each paragraph in his resignation letter as State Department Science Advisor.
Going public with their collective resignation, members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities submitted a missive that similarly read, RESIST.
Horrible as it is to promote Roman Polanski, given his unforgivable history, the word "acrostic" first came to my attention because of his movie, The Ghost Writer (2010). I admit to liking The Ghost Writer, enjoying both its Massachusetts settings - real and cinematically contrived - as well as its edgy plot.
The ultimate political intrigue is revealed at the end of the movie in the form of an acrostic found in the text that the ghost writer played by Ewan McGregor was editing. In this case, these were one-word acrostics and not the one-letter variety in the news these days. It turns out that acrostics have been with us throughout the history of literature. They were particularly popular in Medieval poetry, wherein poets used the device to "sign" their name or offer Biblical passages.
No question, however, that Adrienne Lafrance is correct in writing in the current issue of The Atlantic that, "Hiding a message in a resignation letter is provocative—but also passive aggressive."
Of course, but it certainly does crank up the publicity machine. Still, let’s recognize that there's nothing new here in U.S. political terms. Right-wing trolls were using acrostics in social media taunts a few years ago as they drove brazenly and bitterly off the Benghazi cliff.
With this post, you now have my own acrostic in all its passive-aggressive glory.
IMPEACH was what Daniel Kammen recently spelled out with the first letter of each paragraph in his resignation letter as State Department Science Advisor.
Going public with their collective resignation, members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities submitted a missive that similarly read, RESIST.
Horrible as it is to promote Roman Polanski, given his unforgivable history, the word "acrostic" first came to my attention because of his movie, The Ghost Writer (2010). I admit to liking The Ghost Writer, enjoying both its Massachusetts settings - real and cinematically contrived - as well as its edgy plot.
The ultimate political intrigue is revealed at the end of the movie in the form of an acrostic found in the text that the ghost writer played by Ewan McGregor was editing. In this case, these were one-word acrostics and not the one-letter variety in the news these days. It turns out that acrostics have been with us throughout the history of literature. They were particularly popular in Medieval poetry, wherein poets used the device to "sign" their name or offer Biblical passages.
No question, however, that Adrienne Lafrance is correct in writing in the current issue of The Atlantic that, "Hiding a message in a resignation letter is provocative—but also passive aggressive."
Of course, but it certainly does crank up the publicity machine. Still, let’s recognize that there's nothing new here in U.S. political terms. Right-wing trolls were using acrostics in social media taunts a few years ago as they drove brazenly and bitterly off the Benghazi cliff.
With this post, you now have my own acrostic in all its passive-aggressive glory.
Image courtesy of the Pierce Brosnan Files