Acronyms
Submitted by JtC on Wed, 08/17/2016 - 12:02pm
I've had several requests to have an acronym list here at c99p, on top of many complaints in the comment threads. I personally do not have the time to compile an acronym list and then update it as new ones pop up. I'd like to propose that someone volunteer to start an acronym essay that will be a running alphabetized list of common acronyms used here. A master alphabetized list can be compiled in the essay body and as folks want acronyms added to the list they can mention them in a comment. It would then be up to the essay's author to add them to the master list. I can then add a link to the acronym essay somewhere in the menus.
Any volunteers?
Comments
Heck, just type the acronym in Google and
it usually comes up with an answer.
Or go here: http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php although GWOT isn't listed as "Global War on Terror" but as "Glorified Waste Of Time".
When writing I usually start by defining an acronym that will be used later in the essay... The Clinton Global Iniiative (CGI) blah blah blah,,, but its clear that the CGI is blah blah blah a money laundering operation blah blah and a GWO$....
From the Light House.
That's the proper way to do it, Alex,
and if everyone did it that way, there would be no complaints. Typing it into Google is a step the reader should not have to make, IMHO (in my humble opinion - okay, that was defined for fun!).
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Not always helpful
Do you think GOS would have come up with an explanation on google? I would have been amazed, as I'm sure the term, which refers to Daily Kos, is used primarily here.
GOS = Gaming on Steroids
or Global Operating System
or Gross Operating Surplus
or Government Owned Software
or Government of Slovenia
So you are correct that Google may not always help.
For the longest time I thought TPTB meant 'the people to blame'
And don't get me started on the use of SOS Clinton. I didn't know if that meant SOS as in help! or 'sack of shit'
The people, united, will never be defeated.
Actually Davey, that definition probably works just as well
and is equally apropos to the point.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
Both
People to blame and sack of shit.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
What IS GOS anyway?
Just kidding!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Greedy Old Sucker.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
I usually check urban dictionary
or do a google search, which combined with context is often enough to figure out most generally used acronyms. Writers can help by defining (or avoiding) acronyms.
I think the biggest problem JtC is getting at here is the "insider" lingo that is used around here, which can't be looked up anywhere - especially the ways people try to avoid naming Daily Kos:
TOP - the other place, or that other place
GOS - great orange Satan
LOF - little orange footballs
I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I see most often and have been guilty of using at times.
Jumping in where I shouldn't
perhaps. I spent 31 years in land use planning working for local government. Planners tend to speak in acronyms which can be very frustrating to the average citizen. My personal rule of thumb in dealing with acronyms back then was to spell out the agency or whatever the acronym stood for the first time while putting its acronym in parens immediately following. I also did the same thing in public presentations and found that worked very well.
It is not difficult for folks to use the same rule of thumb. I think this is a far more efficient way to enlighten everyone as to what the acronym stands for than trying to compile a master list of acronyms that one must search while reading. Further, I am not sure we could cover all the possible acronyms out there any way, so it would be a rather fruitless task.
To me, it is a courtesy that we should extend to one another by taking just a few more seconds to spell it out the first time with the acronym in parens in each essay or comment.
Just my own acronym challenged $.02 for what it is worth.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Did You Ever Deal With These Guys, gulfgal98?
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Too funny!!!
If I had seen this cartoon back when I was still working, I would have had a copy of it on the wall of my cubical. Love it!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
abbreviations and partial sentences slow down the reading
That is the standard way I was trained for grad school papers and business reports. It sure makes it easier, because some acronyms have more than one meaning or may mean something different in the common lingo between two industries. Since all of us on this site come from varied backgrounds, we all use a different lingo.
My request is: please spell out what you're trying to say in a full sentence that stands alone. Besides the abbreviation problem, some posts are partial sentences lost in the thread of that they were responding to.
SOTA
(Spell Out The Acronym)
Of course that involves more work than actually writing the phrase out in the first place. A Javascript program could be written that shows the spelled out acronym if you, for instance, hover the mouse over the acronym and click the right mouse button or enter a key combination.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Defining an acronym on it's first use is the way to go.
However with the advent of texting acronyms became a popular shortcut. I had hoped the addition of voice recognition to cell phone technology would cut down on the misuse and abuse of acronyms. It has not.
I've always felt using acronyms in public communications was lazy.
The people, united, will never be defeated.
Those who use the acronym
should spell out the complete wording and put the acronym in parenthesis.
Problem solved without a list.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
I agree...
about the author spelling it out and also using Google, that's what I do, but there is a couple of members that have email and PMed me several times asking for a list here, so I thought I'd ask.
Actually it would take the same amount of effort to search Google as it would to open an essay and then search the list for the acronym, but some folks insist that we need a list. I don't have the time.
I disagree...
I am sure I am not the only one who when looking up an acronym on Google gets distracted by other definitions or other material that shows up. There is also the problem that has been pointed out by several people here that the acronym that the essayist used may have a number of definitions. Once readers find the definition, they need to go back and try to fit it into the narrative that may have lost the train of thought regarding the point that was being made. This results in poor communication of ideas and/or facts.
The ideal thing would be for essayists to apply the standard usage of spelling out the name on first use with the acronym in parenthesis. However, as this has been mentioned quite a number of times and been ignored, a list may be the only way to foster understanding that some writers expect without putting in the effort.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I'm OK with a list...
who's going to compile it?
look south ... JtC ... the voodoo spells are coming /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
I am serious I write a list, but need to know
which acronyms I should include. WindDancer13 didn't respond so far.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I really need more than 10 minutes usually to respond.
Especially right now as I am in the middle of installing over 500 items on two computers--you really do not want to ask. = )
I asked JtC above about using the table function in essays here or the possibility of copying and pasting a spreadsheet. That would make it easier to keep things in alphabetical order and updated.
To start, just make a quick scan of essays and you will find tons of acronyms. The "insider" ones such as GOS should be included as there are going to be more and more people showing up here that have no idea (or care) what Daily Kos is. Lots of organizations use insider language to shut out those who are not in the "know" and that is not a way to encourage participation.
Again it would be easier all the way around if writers would take responsibility for this, but apparently that is not going to happen.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
aww, I just paid someone to uninstall some hundreds of
items on my computer. Sigh.
As for your other suggestions, I won't go through all the diaries to look out for acronyms here. I had another idea what I would look for if I ever were going systematically through diaries here. But then I really don't know ... Do I need to set up my own website and link to that?. As I can't see how one can have a searchable list (at least not one that grows) without interactive table features etc.
I need to relearn and learn some coding. But I am not going into that for an acronym list, sorry. It has to be something I like to have, that you would basically not find somewhere else, to go through that kind of work. I am sorry to be that egoistic. There are things on this site that are worth to collect, that you wouldn't find anywhere else. But acronyms ... sigh.
Simply ask for a translation when you stumble on to one you don't know. Sorry to decline the offer now.
https://www.euronews.com/live
All browsers now have a find function, so it would not
have to be a searchable database. The idea of a spreadsheet was mostly for visual reasons.
What I am currently doing is installing items/graphics content. I uninstalled most of the stuff I have no more need for before I made the switch to Windows 10--on the last day possible to get it for free. = )
I had a client one time who wanted all vestiges of AOL deleted from his computer. That cost him a pretty penny as AOL leaves tracks all over a computer. Guess he should not have been surfing porn sites, huh?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I have always found it much easier to just back up everything of
any importance and do a new install every year or so, particularly back when I was gaming on XP or Windows 7.
The constant installing and uninstalling of games due to space restrictions, lack of interest, etc. as well as running bunches of beta software to test/review would invariably lead to "Windows Rot" and a fresh install made everything seem so much faster again.
Generally I keep everything important file wise on a separate drive and back it up to my NAS as well.
Ends up being way faster to reinstall all the old stuff, particularly now that I have an SSD (and soon a M.2 drive) which makes install times ludicrously quick and it's so easy to restore all your settings and such anymore.
But I am a lazy bastard, so if there is a faster or easier way to do something I probably know it.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I have enough drive space to not worry about running out
space. Though, I still do complete reformat and reinstall occasionally to clean up the mess that Windows make of any computer.
However, that is not what I am doing right now. What I am doing at the moment has no shortcuts. I buy content or download freebies from a number of places of all types of graphics content for my art work as well as add-ons for modeling software--mostly stuff for Adobe, Cinema 4D, ZBrush, Poser Pro and DAZ Studio. There is nothing else to do for it but install them one at a time. As I tend to let it build up, I end up with 100s of files to install. This time, I have almost 1000 items to install for a variety of programs.
The Poser stuff is particularly time consuming because I have items organized into a number of runtimes (male clothes, females clothes, hair, etc.). I also have to rename a lot of files as the people who created them usually don't set up their folders in a manner that make it easy to find later (when crawling through 100s of products).
I made a good dent in the pile today, but it is getting close to time to go play my game, so am trying to wrap this session of tedium up.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Wouldn't it be possible to write a script that could do that?
Add each item for you one at a time automatically? Have it just add each file in alphabetical order in a specific folder?
I am not much of a code monkey but it seems doable.
If someone does it I want 10%.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
It would be possible if I wasn't so picky about organization
and the naming of files, and would not work for all of them. I have done some scripting and coding, but probably not enough to get everything in the correct place with the correct name. In addition, some are zips, some rars, some exes. Also, the creators all name the Readme file "Readme," so I would still be stuck with changing those one at a time or overwrite all the Readme files. I am sure I haven't even thought of all the problems that would pop up with the way the content needs to be installed correctly.
I just put on some good music and plow through it. As sometimes I have to look up what the item is to make sure it goes in the correct runtime, it gives me a chance to go, "Oh, look! Isn't that cool! Sure glad I bought that! Now what the hell am I going to use it for?" = )
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Mimi seems to have volunteered. = )
I would have sworn there was a way to add tables in here. Maybe there is a way for essays and not for comments? That would be handy for such a list. Is it possible to copy and paste a table from a spredsheet into an essay?
So, now, she seems to want a list to start with. = )
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
so, what kind does THAT smiley say? I wanna list of smiley
translations .... /just kidding
https://www.euronews.com/live
I heard that a smile was a smile in
any language. There is a list here (at c99) of smileys and their meanings. = )
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Well, since it's you asking Mimi...
Here ya go.
Emojipedia.org
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I was kidding, as I said in the comment, I really
have a "kidding malfunction" problem on C99p and should stop kidding immediately. As of now I am only writing serious comments.
https://www.euronews.com/live
No, I totally got that you were kidding.:)
And I was kidding back, hence the winky face.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
brain malfunction on my side, sorry /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
ok, WindDancer13, I write one for you
so, how do I know which acronyms to include? Should I write a diary asking: "Love me my acronyms, gimme me, gimme your acronyms and I shower you with some loving spells?"
I can do that. But beware of my SPELL (= Spectral Eulerian Lagrangian Mode) Has something to do with Chemistry, heh I was one once, so forgive me my joking in case it's not clear.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I would just add those that you know, and ask users to add
theirs or any you may have missed in the comments and then when they do update the original essay to include that entry.
Then if it gets long people can just hit CRTRL-F and type in the one they want and it will jump to it.
Would probably be the easiest method.
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
I get more than distracted
I get lost, someimes for hours, but that is nobody's fault or responsibility but mine. Having said that, it's just good writing form and polite to spell it out the first time with the acronym in parenthesis and then use the acronym.
To the writers: for the love of all that's holy, don't use the legal form, i.e. Puerto Rico, hereinafter referred to as PR. AAAAAAAAAAARGH!
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.
I do the same and sometimes when I get back...
if i get back...from my little side trip, I just close the essay that sent me off for hours rather than finish reading it or commenting. On the other hand, I learn a lot about everything else other than what the essayist had in mind.
Big ditto on your second paragraph!
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Ok, so I'm thinking I *might* volunteer to do this
After all, I did say I was willing to donate time to helping JtC, and I want to give him a standing ovation for asking for a volunteer!
But your post just pretty much convinced me it would be a fool's errand. Yes, any essayist might mean any number of things when using some acronyms. Good point!
So beyond the fact that I can't think of more than about five or six acronyms that are unique or specific to this community, how could any list compiler be expected to know what various authors might mean when using acronyms either? And you still have to interrupt your train of thought/reading to go look at the list. Seems likely to create as many problems as it might solve.
Tell you what JtC, ask one of those users who keep asking for a list to make a list of the acronyms they want defined. Then post it and we will fill in the answers for them.
Oh, good - someone else with ADD
I'm lost way more often than I'm found...
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
LOL, in the main game I play,
my sub-title is Easily Lost. After five years on that game and 40 plus characters, I still get constantly lost. All it takes is to blink. One in-game friend keeps telling me to look at the map, and I keep telling him that I am looking at the map.
My ability to get lost has been a running joke with pretty much anyone who has ever known me. One friend went so far as to buy me a compass (not that it helped) because it drove him crazy each time I pointed in the direction that I knew Albuquerque was in (always wrong).
I am glad (kinda, although also sorry to hear of another afflicted) to know I am not alone. Maybe, we will bump into each other someday. LOL
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Even my car gets lost now...
I have a now ancient (but still running great now that it has a new hybrid battery!) Prius, and the GPS in it is now several generations old. Can't use it. She makes a point of taking me the LONG way now. It's quite funny as long as I can rely on another method.
At the worst of my Lyme (before it was diagnosed), I'd get lost in my own neighborhood. That would have been embarrassing if I had let on to anyone. Disorientation spells with it have left me utterly lost until I can regroup (which takes a long stretch).
Sounds like we have a lot in common.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
A lot in common...
including ancient cars. though mine never had a gps (not sure if it was invented then). I have battery problems with my car also. I have a 1988 Chevy Nova. = ) I rarely leave the house, so the car gets me where I need to go and it cuts down on my getting lost about town (which I still do after 11 years here in a small town). On the other hand, I have seen areas around here that I would probably not have seen if I hadn't gotten lost. I just refer to my "side trips" as having taken the scenic route.
My oldest daughter had Lyme disease when she was in the Army. I am not sure how much it has effected her as she hasn't said much about the effects. Besides, she is somewhat a hypochondriac so it is sometimes hard to tell when there is a real problem.
I guess it just goes to show how adaptable we can be when faced with various problems.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
One could google or ask the poster who used the acronym
what the acronym stands for.
nah, not necessary for usual acronyms, the only thing
I sometimes wished is to get the insider lingo of the music aficionad. When they talk about times bygone when they had seen this and this at that and that music shack and start day dreaming of old gigs and stuff, I am so much at a loss and it would be so nice to understand more. But I would never ask for a list or a translation ... it's already fun to read their little chats among each other and there is still the music itself. Pretty fun enough.
https://www.euronews.com/live
acronyms
should be shoved aboard a rocket that is then fired into the sun.
Or, as they would say in acronym, ASBSAARTITFITS.
That begins with an "A"...
and would be a fine start for an acronym list. I nominate you to be keeper of the acronyms. Hah!
i know
that from time to time I have been Bad, but, please, oh lord, not that bad. ; )
If it be possible, let this cup pass from me . . . .
I second Hecate
All in favor? Ayes have it. Congrats Hecate.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
OK, tired of hunting the corner in round rooms.
I duckduck'd it and only came up with
Or, as they would say in acronym, ASBSAARTITFITS. up. 8 users have voted. Log in or register to post comments; Wed, 08/17/2016 ... But I'm old. It seems most people on blogs and certainly on C99 prefer acronyms to English. I use the acronym dictionary and other sites, but not all acronyms are ...
Search domain www.caucus99percent.comcaucus99percent.com/content/
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
I'm starting to write
out the words in acronyms instead of using them. I know some by heart but theses days it's hard to read if you have to constantly interrupt the flow and go what does this mean? It's kind of fun to write out the words as words are pretty cool and big ugly caps are not. I'm counting on this new practice of using words to become a habit. It doesn't bother me if people use acronyms if I can't figure out what they are I just move on to reading something that's coherent to my eyes and mind. imho: a dictionary or list would be a waste because it would really interfere with the flow of what your reading. Sometimes I just continue reading and make up what the translation of these handful of letters are. I don't text or have a stupid phone so it's no problem typing real words. Words are fun.
This comment was one I made on May 6.
I think the comment below is still germane. Here is my original post:
I try to write in full sentences and complete words. But I'm old. It seems most people on blogs and certainly on C99 prefer acronyms to English. I use the acronym dictionary and other sites, but not all acronyms are listed. Most acronyms can be gotten from context or ignored if not crucial to the meaning. I have done my best. Really, I have. But one of the popular acronyms in use here is not in the dictionary or any other researchable site that I can find: "CT".
Please give me the English translation. It would help if people would use acronyms when they really need to save space and not in everyday communication.
I did find out what "CT" meant (conspiracy theory) when a few people answered my comment. Thank you.
I also agree with GulfGal that the correct usage in English prose is to write the phrase in full and then put the acronym is parentheses immediately following.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
While where at it
another pet peeve I have is #hashtags. There you go. I don't tweet but at least the #hashtags are made up of real words. Just thought I'd add my two cents regarding the Internet's growing tower of Babel. Interesting to watch the developments of language which has often come about because of the hand held devises people use.
Phoneslaves
I admit to tweeting...
But only from my PC. I never use a phone for anything other than calls and the occasional text. (Yeah, I'm a luddite)
My whole thing with twitter is that I have made some acquaintances with minor celebrities whose work I admire. In fact, I've gotten to know some folks and have been working with some folks I met there. (Minor stuff, but still fun) Like this guy, who's a composer I only met because we both are big fans of Jeremy Soule.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH0GaiM_aMI]
Unfortunately, there's also a lot of morons on twitter, which is where the Block button comes in so handy.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Hey DMW
I have no call get all purist about the social media biggies. I do the fb. I didn't for years but I thought I needed to use it for marketing our business. Never have used it for that it's not really a place you want to put your business on. I like fb as most of my family is there. I also have 'friends' from here and ex-dkos'ers. I belong to a fb group called Stop Demolishing Portland that uses fb to organize for local activism and alerts. Fb also has a button where I don't have to 'unfriend' people but can block them from my feed. I haven't been there lately as people I know and respect in real life are gung ho for Hillary. They fear The Hairball. To each his own as far as social media goes.
I've seen many complaints here
about acronyms for TOP stuff, but not really for anything else. Is acronym misuse a seriously common problem? If so, I was not aware.
In any case, I echo what pretty much everybody said above: spell it out fully the first time and then use the acronym after that.
I miss Colorado.
I probably wasn't meant to laugh
When I read this but I just imagined you, with all the things you have to do in a day, trying to answer this kind of inquiry.
"Dear concerned member...
I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I really did in fact laugh out loud. Good thing you're at the helm of this enterprise instead of someone like me. I'd prolly burn the place to the ground in a day if I had to read some of the stuff you get in your inbox.
P.S. I guess that wasn't very helpful. Sorry.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
My only odd acronym -- FSC = Former Secretary Clinton. ;-) EOM
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I liked that one Unabashed Liberal
Before I knew what the FS words were I had fun making up outrageous names for the FS in front of Clinton.
Agree--Shah's is better. Mine was a bit of CYA at DKos. ;-D NT
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I've seen HRH, which I assume means
Her Royal Heinous.
If not, too bad! That's what it means to me, and always will.
to me,
hrh references a blogger long ago run off Daily Kos by Armando and his banshees.
Might have been before my time
No idea who that might be.
When I joined dkos (2008), if memory serves, Armando was infamous and had been banned. Too bad he didn't stay that way.
I remember that too
But I never knew why
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
GOS is my favorite acronym;
Great Orange Satan! It's funny when it pops up in DKOS too.
I use DuckDuckGo to search acronyms. Works well.
By the way Jtc, this site rocks! The content and people are the best! It leaves GOS in the dust!
I worked with another person here to put a table up of states
which allowed write in votes. It took a little work, but we made it. The original data was not sorted alpha by state, which we were able to fix.
So it can be done. Sounds like DuckDuckGo and the Urban Dictionary are the way to go.
I strongly support the Strunk and White grammar/style book which says the first time you use the acronym, spell out the words and put the abbreviation in parentheses. It works as far as I know (afaik).
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
If you can donate, please! POP Money is available for bank-to-bank transfers. Email JtC to make a monthly donation.
There's this
500 most common acronyms
***
http://www.muller-godschalk.com/acronyms.html
***
You can't list 'em all. There's new ones every day.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
In software we have TLA
"Three Letter Acronym".
Not to mention the self-referential GNU ("Gnu's Not Unix")!
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Unfortunately, it's common for a community to develop slang
terms and jargon which are unknown to those outside the community. With regard to acronyms, sometimes they refer to people or organizations, such as:
HRC (Hillary Rodham Clinton)
WJC (William Jefferson Clinton, aka [also known as] Bill Clinton)
GWB (George W. Bush)
DNC (Democratic National Committee)
DWS (Debbie Wasserman-Schultz)
DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee)
But we also use acronyms to stand for commonly used phrases, such as:
DBAD (Don't be a dick)
DBAA (Don't be an ass)
IANAL (I am not a lawyer)
IOKIYAR (It's OK if you are Republican)
IMO (In My Opinion,)
BTW (By the way,)
FWIW (For what it's worth)
If a writer uses an acronym, you should also feel free to ask them what it means. This community really tries to be informative and compassionate.
"All Life is Problem Solving" - Karl Popper
One of the few useful comments, Alex
And thanks for the definition of IOKIYAR! I've seen it, and didn't know what it meant.
On LOF (Little Orange Footballs), a person could get their head bitten off for asking what something meant.
That said, if everyone wrote out the words, no one would be asking what things mean. Many of the comments are poo pooing the fact that not all people know what the hell people are talking about. Kinda reminds me of LOF in that respect. Unfortunate, that.
And thanks, mimi, for taking up the cause. We have site acronyms not found on Google. Oh, and I post from my phone, so typing everything out takes more than a second or two (for the poo pooers saying to type it out).
One acronym I had to look up recently was ICYWW
which stands for “in case you were wondering,” in case you were wondering.
For the greater good...
How much longer does it take the typer person to write out the whole word? 10 sec extra??
Say 20 people read that essay. 60% have to look up the meaning. It takes them 30 seconds maybe?? So the aggregate time would be 6 minutes.
10 seconds versus 6 minutes.
Why can't the poster just write out the full word?
I'm trying to do
just that as words are so great. It's a habit from being on the net. I like reversing my brain back to words instead of newspeak acyornms that are in many cases totally partisan propaganda and social programming.
The double post Gremlin
is back!
that's so
you can double your pleasure, double your fun.
Or, in acronym, DYPDYF.