Of BBLs and T&Bs
| Monday 02 Nov 2009, by atimmermann |
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Like any institution worth its sodium chloride, →CHF is awash with acronyms and backronyms* that confuse outsiders and insiders alike. In order to add to the confusion and unlock hitherto unsourced potential for further puzzlement, here is a short glossary to terms our fellows encounter and master in their everyday lives.
CHF: Contrary to Google results and general public knowledge, this is not just Congestive Heart Failure, the Swiss Franc or the Children’s Hunger Fund, but also the Chemical Heritage Foundation: Library · Museum · Center for Scholars; aka Home of the Fellows.
BBL: Brown Bag Lunch or Brown Bag Lecture. A well-established forum for munching one’s way through another researcher’s work in progress. At →CHF in particular, BBLs are opportunities for our fellows and invited speakers to present their work to a wonderfully eclectic audience (CHF staff members, →PACHS fellows, →Penn students and the odd museum visitor). And while the audience’s brown bags do not contain anything more exciting than sandwiches and yoghurts, our speakers always have a bag of tricks to amaze their listeners. Every Tuesday during term time, 12 noon.
Penn: The University of Pennsylvania, one of the educational facilities whence we may source our fellows. Hosts of the HSS (History and Sociology of Science) Monday Workshops, which are a welcome opportunity for CHF fellows to mingle with other fellowy folk and get out of Old City.
PACHS: The Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science, better explained as the organization that brings all history of science institutions in the greater Philadelphia** area together on one handy Web site. IRL (“in real life”), PACHS also organizes colloquia, offers fellowships, and does many good deeds to keep the conversation between member institutions going. PACHS fellows like to attend CHF →Yoga and →CALCIUM.
Yoga: Not the Yukon Oil and Gas Act in this context, but a reference to a practice that keeps us Young, Original, Graceful & Awesome! An exercise of bending mind and body into new shapes, practiced weekly at →CHF.
CALCIUM: Conversations And Literature about Chemistry (Including Unusual Materials): the work-in-progress seminar we offer for our fellows every other week. It has been proven to be good for the brains. We recommend taking CALCIUM with a cup of coffee and a cookie.
T&B: Tea & Biscuits, CHF’s weekly “tea party” with sweets and conversation for and by CHF staff. Every week, someone brings homemade cookies or goodies otherwise procured; most of the time, there is no tea provided. But we are always happy to catch up with our real and imaginary colleagues in this popular social hour! Curiously, “TNB” otherwise refers to Trinitrobenzene in the chemical world.
T&B at CHF
Do you have unique acronyms to share? That’s why the creator of this Web site invented the comment box below. Good-bye!***
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* A backronym, as my old friend Wiki Pedia informs me, “is a phrase that is constructed ‘after the fact’ from a previously existing word. For example, the novelist and critic Anthony Burgess once proposed that the word ‘book’ ought to stand for ‘Box Of Organised Knowledge.’”
** PACHS currently includes the Academy of Natural Sciences; American Philosophical Society; CHF; the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; the Franklin Institute; Hagley Museum and Library; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Library Company of Philadelphia; Princeton University; University of Pennsylvania; and the Wagner Free Institute of Science.
*** Getting Out Our Dreams, Between Your Ears. QED, not all short words are acronyms . . .
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