358
What is your least favourite acronym? (lemmy.nz)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
549 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 speechβ€”you have to say the whole thing.

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 138 points 2 years ago (3 children)

POS I find very funny as I'm often working on Point-of-Sale equipment, and most of it is running Poorly Optimized Software, making the whole thing a Piece of Shit for the users.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Not an acronym though, but an initialism. Acronyms are said like a word, like CRISPR, initialisms aren’t, like ATM.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 43 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    you're being pointlessly pedantic. Initialisms are also considered acronyms by most defimitions and by common use.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I don't think they're being pointlessly pedantic. I've been around POS systems and some people call it by the letters, P.O.S. & others by the acronym, sounding like "pause". Nobody assumes you're talking about a Piece of Shit when you say "pause". Also for OOO ("oooh") vs O.O.O., which doesn't roll off the tongue, but you don't sound like Casper.

    Now, being pointlessly pedantic, I find it interesting to think that if we continue to use the word acronym for initialisms, then the word acronym will actually be initialisms! English is weird!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    im not saying theres no difference between pronouncing each lettwer and pronouncing the whole thing like a word, just that both are generally considered acronymns so the correction was unnecessary.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Oh shit. TIL. Also, I guess TIL is not an acronym then lol.

    Speaking of ATM, am I the only one that defaults this to "ass to mouth", before realizing they mean asynchronous transaction machine?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Hmmm, interesting. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say "TIL" out loud. When I read it, I say it as an acronym ("till") in my head, but I think if I ever said it out loud, I'd probably go with the initialism ("tee-eye-ell"). All that to say, maybe it's both?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I always pronounce all initialisms as words if even close to possible. I don't care whether or not they were meant to. Till, fuhtfy, fuhmmuhl, wuhtf, and so on. Some I understand why others might say as individual letters, but others I have no clue because it doesn't make sense to me at all. Why would you ever say double-u tee eff, which is two syllables longer than the actual words?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    For years I had no idea Point of Sale was a thing, and always thought people were talking about systems they hated as pieces of shit.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •