Guest editor ’ s comment
was sitting quietly in
I Florida when the ageold chestnut about why an American game like Baseball insists on calling their final the World Series and why the premier yachting prize is called America ’ s Cup came up . Proof of American vanity , ignorance , chauvinism and vulgarity said my democratic friends . Which got me to thinking about the problems of nomenclature .
First , Baseball . It has long been believed that the World Series title was bestowed by the paper New York World in 1903 . But this isn ’ t true . The equipment manufacturer Spaulding called baseball playoffs Championship of the World as early as the 1880s – and they wanted teams from the UK and Australia to compete . Baseball was very popular in the UK at the time . Derby County ’ s football ground was called The Baseball Ground because the club played it as often as soccer .
The America ’ s Cup was named because the first yacht ever to win the race in 1851 was called “ America ”.
Acronyms are a headache . The ‘ three Rs ’ so beloved of headteachers are nothing of the sort – only one of the three begins with an R , which gives one limited confidence in the teaching profession .
Recent winners of the CBE are to be congratulated – but they command nothing , British is surely long gone with a trade border between England and NI ( and Scotland likely to defect soon ), and we don ’ t appear to have an Empire anymore either ( farewell Barbados ).
What ’ s in a name ?
But my thinking was about our own industry . We have the AEO ( Association of Event Organisers ), AEV ( Association of Event Venues ), ESSA ( Event Services and Suppliers ) and the rather strange EIA ( Events Industry Alliance ) which is an amalgam of the three . Google EIA and see what you find … It is the repetition of the word ‘ event ’ which troubles me .
I appear to write for Exhibition News , not Event News Last time I looked , I write these weekly articles for
EN guest editor Phil Soar muses on nomenclature . Let ’ s boldly reclaim exhibitions , he says
Phil Soar
Exhibition News , never Event News .
If you look through the alphabet soup of other seemingly comparable organisations , then the options are largely indistinguishable from one other . Conference News gives 14 relevant groups ( and we know there are at least a dozen more ) and they all have ‘ meetings ’ or ‘ events ’ in their title . MPI ( Meetings Professionals International ) has 17,000 members ( the AEO has 86 and AEV 44 ).
Herein lies a major problem . The words ‘ meetings ’ and ‘ events ’ are synonymous . In the UK how could an outsider ( or the DCMS ) distinguish between the Meetings Industry Association
14 — Winter