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What is your least favourite acronym? (lemmy.nz)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

529 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mine is OOO for Out Of Office. I always misread it in my head like a ghost and it takes me a few seconds to process. It also doesn't translate to speech—you have to say the whole thing.

Interested to see if others have similar acronyms they beef with.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

GSW isn't an acronym as far as I'm concerned. It's an initialism. But it sure is stupid, I will say. Much faster to say it the "long" way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

I think you mean GSW IAAAFAICIAI

Given how many times people make this same initialism point, it’s time we made an acronym for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes, initialism or alphabetism is used to refer to acronyms formed from the string of initials which are usually pronounced as individual letters

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's an unfortunate, incorrect phrasing. 😅

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's a very deliberate phrasing, since not everyone agrees that initialisms are not acronyms.

Personally I think that "ackhually that's an initialism not an acronym 🤓" is exactly the kind of ultimately irrelevant distinction that internet know-it-alls love to know and point out. I know because I used to be like that too when I was younger.

But often those distinctions are not universally acknowledged or useful in all contexts. Like how strawberries are not scientifically berries, but we still often group them as berries.

Nitpicking word definitions is pointless when the distinction being pointed out is not relevant for the conversation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I'm not saying I'm the tone of "aaackshually".

I personally love to learn these types of things, so in case someone learns something they'd like to learn, I'm here for it. If people get butthurt or annoyed about it because "I've been using it wrong and that makes it right..." 🤷‍♂️ I dunno.