Which came first? The name or the acronym?

Imagine you're a purely fictional inventor created for the purpose of illustrating a point, like Dr Ottaker is.

Dr Ottaker is the finest fictional inventor I've created in the last ten minutes. He may be the best I ever create, only time will tell.

Dr O, as he is know to his friends and creator, has invented a device which when strapped to your head, emits a shield of invisible particles over you to absorb any water droplets heading for your otherwise unprotected hairstyle. It's not going to save lives. But it will save groomed hair which, in the USA and UK, is probably viewed by your average citizen as just as important.

Today, having the use of every dextrous limb is paramount, so an umbrella - the once accessory for every lady-what-does-lunch and diamond gent - is now just something you hold which isn't as fun to hold as an iPhone is. Dr O's invention will free up that extra hand to hold your second iPhone. So both of your iPhones can iChat to each other and unbeknown to you laugh at what a dick you are for having two iPhones using some clever little 'app' you downloaded for only £250 and then £1,000 a week until Steve Jobs pulls his iFist out of your arse.

So patented and packaged, Dr O's little device is ready to be sold to L'Oreal or VO5 or Duncan Bannatyne from Dragons' Den, but there is a problem. Dr O for all his brains, of which there is a whole heap, is not the best with words. The working title of his invention is The Particle Beam Droplet Sythesising Protection Device with Built-in Radiograph Streamlining Technology, or something like that. And this my friend, is not catchy. So some wise-cracking BA Marketing graduate is flown in to 'dynamise' it using an acronym - the idiot's grammatical weapon of choice.

Literally tens of minutes later, Dr O's invention is reborn as The Airborne Invisible Droplet Synthesiser. Or more importantly to your run-o-the-mill Superdrug customer, all thanks to our BA Marketing graduate, the invention is now known as The A.I.D.S. Mr Ottaker has invented The AIDS. Strictly true? No. But that's what it now says on Wikipedia, so that's what the majority of the internet-browsing world thinks.

Ottaker is devastated, he hits the gin with vigour and reaches for his crack pipe. Mrs O kicks him out when the tabloids snap him trawling the streets for hookers, changes the locks, files for divorce and tells the kids Daddy has gone away for ever.

All because of an acronym. A point well illustrated. If not concisely illustrated. No need for them.

For the record, Dr O is now not even the best fictional inventor I've created in the last ten minutes. It is now Mr James Lefrionais, a Parisen racounteur who dabbles in alchemy and invented the broad bean.

Things look shit for Dr O.