LAST week I went to Germany, where I discovered they have a word for being excessively fond of abbreviations.

The word is “abkurzungsfimmel”, and it makes sense in a language with words of such dire length that they look as if they’ve been typed on a keyboard with no space bar.

But the mania for acronyms, initialisms and other abbreviations is just as rife outside Germany, despite years of moaning about how profoundly these terms confuse, exclude and generally exasperate.