In a future life, we hope to come back as "branding" experts, people who cash big checks for telling companies and institutions how to set themselves apart in an identifiable way.

It seems like easy work. Consider the news that National Public Radio (NPR) no longer will be known as National Public Radio (NPR), but merely NPR, without the need for the parentheses.

What's the difference? The difference is that people can now listen to NPR, the entity, whereas they used to listen to NPR, the acronym.

"NPR is more modern, streamlined," Vivian Schiller, NPR's chief executive, told the Washington Post. She noted that Cable News Network has been plain old CNN for years. To say nothing of ABC, CBS and NBC. PBS, however, is remaining the Public Broadcasting System, though you're free to call it PBS.

Also: NPR is more than just radio these days. Its earnest offerings can be heard on a variety of digital formats. Radio is pretty darned 20th century. A lot of kids might listen to NPR if they didn't think they were listening to radio like their parents do.

Back in the days when NPR was National Public Radio (NPR), which is to say last month, we heard a slightly smart-alecky story making fun of the Obama administration for telling the Minerals Management Service to change its name.

MMS, which regulates offshore oil companies (or at least is supposed to), has taken a lot of grief for its failures on BP's Gulf oil spill. It now is known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEMRE, which sounds like the way Inspector Clouseau might say "bomber."

In making fun of MMS and BOEMRE on June 23, National Public Radio (NPR) reported, "Changing agency names is a favorite pastime in Washington, especially when powerful people want to look like they're doing something."

Still, we wish NPR the best of luck. Which is why we'd like to announce that from now on, the Editorial Page would like to be known as Ed. Just plain Ed.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH