OBE
- 1Initialism of Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
The retired headmistress received an OBE in the New Year Honours.
She was made an OBE for her work with children's charities.
Note
Here the letters name both an honor and the person who holds it: someone receives an OBE, or is made an OBE. Because it is spoken letter by letter, it takes an rather than a. The O stands for Officer, the rank within the Order of the British Empire that this initialism records.
- 2Initialism of out-of-body experience.
He reported an OBE in which he seemed to drift toward the ceiling.
Some meditators claim to trigger an OBE through deep relaxation.
- 3Initialism of outcome-based education.
The district adopted OBE to measure student progress against clear standards.
Critics argued that OBE placed too much weight on standardized targets.
- 4Initialism of overcome / overtaken by events, meaning rendered obsolete by developments.
Half the action items were OBE before the meeting even started.
The contingency plan became OBE once the deadline was scrapped.
Note
Shorthand for a plan or task that events have made pointless: they overcame or overtook it before anyone acted. It works as a predicate after be or become, as in "the item was OBE." Like obsolete itself, it does not take degrees, so nothing is more OBE than something else.
- 5Initialism of operating-basis earthquake.
The facility must remain fully operational during an OBE.
Seismic analysts set the OBE based on the regional fault history.
- 6Initialism of Office of Bilingual Education.
The OBE issued new guidelines for dual-language classrooms.
Districts applied to the OBE for federal language grants.
- 7Initialism of Oregon Board of Education.
The OBE voted to revise the state's testing schedule.
Superintendents presented their budgets to the OBE in March.
- 8Initialism of Ottawa Board Of Education.
The OBE oversaw hiring and curriculum across the city's schools.
Records from the OBE were transferred when the boards amalgamated.
- 9Initialism of Office of Business Economics, now the BEA.
The OBE compiled national income statistics throughout the postwar years.
Analysts at the OBE tracked industrial output before the agency was renamed.
Note
A name that belongs to the past: the US agency it stood for now goes by BEA. Use the old initialism when writing about work done under that name, and BEA for anything current. In American political and government history the two letter-sets point to the same office at different moments, so a reader meeting either one is looking at a single institution.
- 10Initialism of one big explanation.
The columnist warned against reaching for an OBE when the causes were tangled.
Every panelist offered a different OBE for the market crash.
Note
A skeptic's shorthand, usually aimed at someone else's reasoning: it names the single cause offered when the real picture is messier. It typically takes for. William Keegan wrote in 2022 that for the government, the OBE for our economic troubles was first Covid, then Ukraine. Used this way, it hints that the explanation is a little too convenient.
- 11Initialism of out-of-buggy experience.
He posted a clip of his OBE after a hard gust flipped the rig.
Newcomers to the dunes usually collect at least one OBE.
Note
Powerkiting humor at the expense of the out-of-body experience: swap body for buggy and the mystical becomes the very physical moment a rider parts company with the seat. It is slang among buggy kiters and keeps the joke's light tone. It suits retelling a spill to friends, not writing up an incident report.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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