I have just read the article in the March 16 Western News about the new high-acuity response team (HART). What on earth is that supposed to be?
Acuity means intelligence or shrewdness. If I were told that the high-acuity team was on the way, what would I expect? A bunch of university professors? A group of chess champions? Someone from Mensa? I think I would rather be told that the paramedics were coming.
Is this another example of a perfectly good word being misused for something that it does not mean, as has happened with “vector” and “fusion”?
Perhaps the inventors of this name wanted something that would make an acronym sounding something like “heart” but they miss the mark here as well. A hart is a male deer.
Florence Barton
Penticton