Saying “Academic Life in Emergency Medicine” is a mouthful. Over the years there has been great controversy on our team about how to pronounce the abbreviated name “ALiEM.” Is it a long A like cake? Or is it a short A like apple? People were pronouncing it all sorts of creative ways. In the hopes of making our identity clear, we had heated discussions about this on the team. After much debate (and punitive push-ups), we resolved to pronounce it with a long A – like “alien”. This applies to all our ALiEM projects and initiatives such as ALiEMU.