Okay, once again it is election time, and once again the majority of us are wondering whether we should even bother voting. Personally I will probably vote for Alfred E. Newman, rather than vote for someone who can't remember to put his hand over an open microphone when bad mouthing a news reporter who was standing in front of him, or the other individual who couldn't even hide an illegal campaign contribution from a bunch of Budhist monks. Besides, the motto, "What me worry?", seems to be a fitting campaign slogan during these times of high gas prices and the market fluctuating like a new roller coaster ride. Anyway, in order for us to get our voting juices flowing, I thought this would be a good time to present the readership with the ultimate question that we need to solve... namely how to pronounce the acronym MWAN. Everytime I receive the newsletter, I read it from cover to cover, as I'm sure do most of the subscribers. Throughout the pages we find Hal has abbreviated the name from the Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter to the MWAN. Personnally, I have no problem with that, because if I had to read the full title of the magazine every time, it would probably double or triple the amount of time to read all 190 or so pages. Even so I have often wondered what would be the proper pronounciation of the acronym. Should it be MWAN, phonetically pronounced as Em-one (kind of fitting as it sounds like that WWII rifle doesn't it?). Or should we be pronouncing it as MWAN, phonetically pronounced as My-wand, with the "d" being silent? This pronounciation would naturally have some connotation of personal possession or ownership by each of us towards the magazine, which certainly explains why Hal will publish the mindless dribble submitted by people like me. To move on, it seems appropriate to have others in the readership who have pondered this question, and perhaps come up with pronounciations of their own, to submit theirs in the letter section. Then Hal can have some kind of election where we all vote for what the proper pronouncing of the MWAN will be. There of course will be no prizes other than the warm feeling we will all have knowing that we are calling MWAN by the same politically correct acronym. I know most if not all of you are saying, "who cares?" Well, this is an election year, get of your duffs, and send in your responses. Register to vote by submitting your ideas and letters. Lets make Hal proud of us! That is all, thanks for listening. Back to MWAN #111 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com