Too many acronyms taking over

Capt Lightning said:
Isn't 'Motel' a portmanteau word rather than an acronym?

I usually just ignore messages that contain too many acronyms. I definitely ignore messages that contain 'U' instead of you. If it's not worth writing, then it's not worth reading.
Click to expand...
Do you know, you are right. Just to be sure I did check with the Oxford University Press and sure enough it is a portmanteau word. Other examples of the portmanteau include chortle, from chuckle and snort, smog, from smoke and fog and brunch, from breakfast and lunch.

One word that has become to be known as a common acronym is POSH. It came to stand for the wealthy shipboard travellers who could afford to travel in this way. The letters were said to have been printed on the first-class tickets of passengers travelling on the P. & O. Line to the Far East, indicating that they had paid extra for cabins on the port side of the ship going out and the starboard side coming home so as to avoid the heat and glare of the sun in the Indian Ocean. Hence Port Out Starboard Home.

Did you know that the SIM card in your phone is really your “subscriber identification module” card?
 

If you text a great deal, as I do, acronyms are a huge time saver. But I’m mindful of my audience.

My kids and I have both individual and group threads going constantly, and use acronyms frequently. It saves a great deal of time. But when I’m texting clients, who are for the most part of my generation, I’m less inclined to use them because they aren’t as familiar with them.

And fyi 😉 acronyms came into being largely because in the early days of cell phone usage, mobile carriers and service providers charged their customers to text, first by the word or message and later there were texting plans and packages which allowed users to send a certain number of text messages each month for a fixed fee. I remember those days as I struggled to send a text with as few words as possible in order to not be charged extra for exceeding my texting plan.

Enter acronyms. “As far as I know” was 4 words, AFAIK was just one. “On my way” was 3, OMW just one. FWIW- for what it’s worth, etc. Saved both time and money and allowed for a bit of additional nuance in text communication.
 

Acronyms! Some are OK, because they are common, but some are like people invent them on the spot because they are too lazy to spell a word. I've even googled them sometimes, and found nothing of relevance. If Google doesn't know about them, don't use them. Not all communication is the responsibility of the reader. The writer also needs to be understood. Some writers don't understand that they need to be understandable. They end up getting ignored and wonder why people blow them off. Really, people. Make an effort. 😧

There I even pasted an emoji. You'll have to look it up to see what it means. I'm not even sure what it means, except that I'm trying to be hip. Doesn't help that much, does it! XOBLOT!
 
StillLearning said:
My girlfriend lives in a small town and she said “lol” means “lots of love.” I live in metro and it means” laugh out loud.” So it does mean different things in different places.
Click to expand...
lol has always meant laugh out loud. It’s been mistaken as lots of love typically by folks who don’t use acronyms a lot. There have been countless memes, jokes and discussions about it all over the net.
 
Although the expression 'Posh' is often thought to be an acronym for 'Port out, starboard home', there appears to be little proof that this was its origin. It would seem that the word was virtually unknown before the 20th century and little used until around 1940. While it might accurately describe upper class accommodation, little evidence exists to show that it was printed on tickets.

Nevertheless, it's a good story and no better explanation seems to be around.

If you want a senseless acronym, when I worked for IBM, cupboards were called TSU's - Tall storage units 🙄.
 
Capt Lightning said:
Although the expression 'Posh' is often thought to be an acronym for 'Port out, starboard home', there appears to be little proof that this was its origin. It would seem that the word was virtually unknown before the 20th century and little used until around 1940. While it might accurately describe upper class accommodation, little evidence exists to show that it was printed on tickets.

Nevertheless, it's a good story and no better explanation seems to be around.

If you want a senseless acronym, when I worked for IBM, cupboards were called TSU's - Tall storage units 🙄.
Click to expand...
What I read, but can't remember where, is that before the invention of the centered tiller (we talking olden times), crude ships were steered with a rudder that hung off the right side at the back of the ship. It was called the "steer board." How it was pronounced at the time, one can only guess, but eventually it was pronounced "star-board." Since it was delicate compared to the hull, the ship could never bring its right side go bear against the port or dock because it would damage the steering, so only the left side could be brought to bear against the port and the left side of the ship became known as the "port-side." And the starboard side was the side the steer board hung from.

Sailors being traditional and always looking for an opportunity to sound real salty still rely on those descriptions, mostly to confuse the guests they invite aboard for an afternoon sail, thereby giving the impression that the captain knows what he's doing, even if he only bought the boat last week.
 
The OP is of course talking about acronyms in social media especially smartphones where entering and editing text can be tedious. Am glad not being a member of any post smartphone social media sites.

In science, technology and especially medical and chemical science, one will see significant numbers of acronyms in technical papers because many are rather long multi word terms that need to be repeated multiple times in papers. In this Internet era, those reading such papers must always have an extra window open for searching on whatever stands for. Making that worse in medical science are long organic chemistry names for various molecules and anatomy parts.
 
carouselsilver said:
BTW, what exactly does it mean when someone writes 'You've been pwnd'? I thought at first that it was the word 'owned,' but misspelled.' Is that incorrect?
Click to expand...
According to F-Secure
The term ‘pwned’ was originally coined by gamers to mean ‘owned’ (the ‘o’ being replaced by a ‘p’ due to their proximity on the keyboard.) And when it comes to the question ‘Have I been pwned?’, ‘pwned’ means that someone has taken control of your email address, or a user profile that has been created with it.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
We don't have diseases anymore, we have letters.
DM Diabetes Mellitus
HZ Herpes zoster(shingles)
RSV Respiratory Syncytial Virus
DJD Degenerative joint disease
DTP Diphtheria
ALS, DVT, etc. etc.
Click to expand...

Yes.

Because the people they are being written for know what they mean

Would you really type/write 'diptheriatetanuswhoopingcough' vaccine umpteen times a day when everyone knew dtp meant that?
 
January said:
Yes.

Because the people they are being written for know what they mean

Would you really type/write 'diptheriatetanuswhoopingcough' vaccine umpteen times a day when everyone knew dtp meant that?
Click to expand...
dtp is one thing, but the onslaught of iPhone acronyms is a bit different. And how many things are really funny enough to require writing "rolling on the floor laughing my ass off" more than twice?
 
horseless carriage said:
Some acronyms are spoken so frequently that we begin to think of them as words, like radar, radio detection and ranging. Scuba, self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, and laser: Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Then there are acronyms that have been words for so long that their originality is all but forgotten. For example: 'Motel' was once motor hotel.

Another forgotten acronym is Taser. Still in use around the globe, one of the most surprising things about Taser is the origin of its name. NASA researcher, Jack Cover, was a huge fan of a series of sci-fi books featuring the character Tom Swift, written by Victor Appleton in the early 20th Century. In it, the character Tom carried an electric rifle, which was another inspiration for the technology Jack would go on to develop. Therefore, TASER stands for: "Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle."

Time Magazine argue that their title comes from an acronym: "The International Magazine of Events." Sounds more contrived to me.
Click to expand...
Not completely accurate. I worked for Jack Cover for a couple of years in the early 1970s while Taser was being tested. A very nice man, by the way.

He named it for the book, "Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle" because it was sort of like an electric rifle.

He thought of it as "Tom Swift's Electric Rifle" but said he added the A because TSER was unpronounceable.
 
January said:
Yes.

Because the people they are being written for know what they mean

Would you really type/write 'diptheriatetanuswhoopingcough' vaccine umpteen times a day when everyone knew dtp meant that?
Click to expand...
So true. People in the medical field use a lot of abbreviations. Rx for prescription, Sx for symptoms, Dx for diagnosis and so forth. Once you learn the lingo (not hard) it sure saves a lot of typing.

HIV, AIDS, SARS, COVID, SIDS, ADD, ADHD, IBS, MRSA, HPV and many other illnesses/conditions are rarely discussed using their full names.
 
JustDave said:
dtp is one thing, but the onslaught of iPhone acronyms is a bit different. And how many things are really funny enough to require writing "rolling on the floor laughing my ass off" more than twice?
Click to expand...


sure - but my post you quoted was just in response to the one I quoted about medical conditions
 
Starsong - yes exactly

and not just conditions.

do we really expect doctors to write Magnetic Resonance Imaging or Computer Topography Scan every time they order an MRI or a CAT scan??

but every occupation is probably the same - and as long as the reciever is in same field and will understand the acronym it is all good.

and same on forums or text conversations.
 
IDGI... I wanna take credit for this one... I don't get it!

when it comes to acronyms, I have a sort of rule I like to follow... if I remember to, anyway. the FIRST time I use a phrase that's also an acronym, I type the whole thing out... followed by the initials. EX: I don't get it (IDGI).

sometimes it's kinda fun to try to figure out what the initials stand for. sometimes you can Google an acronym but you can easily run into some hi tech or scientific jargon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top