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Acronyms are a PITA (1 Viewer)

Max Leung

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I hate acronyms. They're everywhere! I hate trying to parse the damn things as I surf the web or read an article.

WTF?!

IMHO, the POS practice should stop ASAP. IANAL, but there should be a law passed to stop this madness. I think a few well-publicised FBI raids and CIA misinformation campaigns should suffice.

Ok, sending in FEMA might be a bit much. I'm a reasonable person. I don't want bloodshed here. But, AFAIK, there isn't an organization devoted to this heinous practice.

Acronym-challenged people of the world, unite!
 

Max Leung

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What is a CLEP?

And speaking of acronyms, I am very fond of the CLITORIS acronym. No, not the one from the Jay and Silent Bob flick...that was lame. I'm talking about the classic Red Dwarf version.
 

Keith Mickunas

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I don't mind those like you listed. What I hate is when people start using them for movie titles all the time without ever stating the actual title. There's been a few times when I've become confused because a few movies share the same acronym, very annoying IMHO.
 

Ted Lee

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boy...i can tell you're not in the IT industry. every freakin' thing i do has some acronym associated with it.

IIRC, sometimes you just gotta say WTF. everyone else is SOL, those lousy SOB's.
 

Max Leung

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Yeah, the IT industry is pretty bad:

SQL, CERT, BIOS, PCI, AGP, VGA, SVGA, GPU, CPU, ISA, EISA, PS/2 (half an operating system for half a computer! hahaha *cough*), USB, XML, SMTP, NNTP, HTML, UML, XSL, DSP, UUCP, UUTP, TFTP, FTP, JIT, IEEE, RFC, ad nauseum until you throw up.

I'm sure the oil industry has its share of bad acronyms going around too.
 

Rob_J

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Add the nuclear industry to the list of over-acronymed places to work. The company I work for has a glossary on the intranet dedicated to acronyms. The funniest thing I saw was that the name of a previous employer of mine was on the list. Go figure.:)
 

Yee-Ming

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you guys should try living in Singapore, just about everything in life will involve an acronym. there's a classic piss-take joke on this, which I can't find off-hand, but a short gist would be something like:-

"live in HDB flat, with water from PUB, buy car must get COE, then pay ERP on CTE on way to CBD..."
 

TheoGB

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Someone (on John Peel's 'Home Truths' Radio 4 show) stated they'd heard (or maybe they invented) that PCM/CIA stood for People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronyms...
:D
Though technically it's only amusing if you substitute 'abbreviations' for 'acronyms', but let's not be anal about this!! ;)
 

AviTevet

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I'd rather have acronyms than business-speak. At least with acronyms, we're leveraging our commonalities and utilizing synergy to form a viable internet ecosystem. :)
 

Rob FM

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Please people, do what I do, and support the use of :
P.D.U.A in your posts.
(Please Don't Use Acronyms)
FWIW, I didn't make that up.
:)
TTFN,
~Rob
 

Daren Welsh

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The aerospace industry is pretty bad. NASA has a site dedicated to an acronym database. What's worse is that each project will have its own set of acronyms. So one acronym will mean one thing for the Shuttle, and it'll mean something completely different for the Station. Then, if you work for a contractor, they have their own set as well. My first few months of meetings at my new job were pretty tough because every other word was an acronym.
 

TheoGB

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Well Rob, technically PDUA is not an acronym as it isn't really a word, I would say!!
 

Rob FM

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Theo, not sure if this will help your point or mine ;)
From the Merriam-Webster Dictonary:
One entry found for acronym.
Main Entry: ac·ro·nym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
Date: 1943
: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term
- ac·ro·nym·ic /"a-kr&-'ni-mik/ adjective
- ac·ro·nym·i·cal·ly /-mi-k(&-)lE/ adverb
I don't think Snafu is a "real" word either, although it IS listed on M-W's site.
I was under the impression that you *made* a word by taking the letters of the slogan you were representing???
Oh well, YMMV on this one.
~Rob
(I stand by my pledge of: PDUA)
:) ;) :)
 

John Garcia

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SNAFU is not a real word, never was. I thought it's origins were in the military? Situation Normal, All F*(ouled) Up.

Same with FUBAR, but that doesn't sound like a real word...

ROTFLMFAO!
 

TheoGB

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I think the point is that all acronyms are abbreviations but not all abbreviations are acronyms.

In my book you must be able to pronounce a word. Hence PDUA, since essentially unpronounceable, is not a word.

I think if you ask an English grad about this sort of thing they'd agree with me.
 

Mike Voigt

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You're absolutely correct. The use of acronyms is IMHO highly overused and should be stopped ASAP.

The really scary part is that I know what almost every one of the acronyms used in this thread (including the IT list) stand for - and I do not work in IT!

Aahhrggg! (
 

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