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I was editing a minor doomfiles page:

    BACONBITS

And it occurred to me that it helped
readability a lot to always insert
Barbara in front of the name Kruger.

This is true even if she was just referred to as
"Barbara Kruger" a moment ago.  This page refers
to three people:  it's about someone commenting on
O'Brien commenting on Kruger, and that's just
complex enough that it helps to give the reader
more hints to identify who you're referring to
at each moment.
                                                        (This is one of the
It could be that this is an issue with feminine         few places I won't
names: Kruger sounds masculine without the first        cringe if you say
name in front.  And us dudes always want to call        "patriarchy!",
women by their first names-- the last name being        though it's more like
the family name, which is presumed to be the head       "patrilineal"--)
of the family, which is presumed to be male--


But "use the full name" is not at all bad policy
in all cases, notably Amy Goodman came to this
conclusion a long time ago, and it works better,
even in spoken interviews, than you'd think.


    It's similar to avoiding acronyms: they're a convenience
    for the writer that offen takes too much mental effort
    for the reader to expand them

    Though this is mainly a problem for newly coined acronyms.
    With an established acronym like the FBI you might as
    well just say that and not make a federal case out of it.

    So let someone else establish acronyms if they're going
    to be established.


         And if you've been squirming in your seat
         thinking "you mean initialisms not actual
         acronyms!", all I can say is you're an         
         even bigger pedantic nerd than I am.





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