I had to laugh when I saw this comic strip in today's newspaper. Not only does cartoonist Bruce Tinsley poke fun at the proliferation/plague of texting, he pokes fun at the proliferation/plague of abbreviations.
Dandelion, in her last blog used "RPG" and kindly explained what the abbreviation meant for us OOTL (Out of the Loop) sorts. I'm glad she explained, because RPG also stands for Rocket Propelled Grenade and Rebounds per game (basketball). I was relieved to know she wasn't involved with grenades! Picturing her playing basketball with the JAZZ was also disturbing!
I've been perplexed by the use of soooooo many abbreviations in the online things I read. Not long ago, I kept running up against "MSM." I could tell the article wasn't referring to methylsulfonylmethane--which was the only MSM I was familiar with. What else is MSM?
Mechanically Separated Meat.
Miami Sound Machine.
I resorted to Wikipedia to learn that the articles were referring to the "Main Stream Media."
Another recent puzzle for me was "AGW. " The context ruled out "Autonomous Guided Weapon" or "Armed Global Warfare." I correctly figured out that the GW part was global warming. But, what was the A? Anthropogenic. Who knew.
Thank goodness for Wikipedia. Otherwise I would be forever OOTL. LOL
8 comments:
Heheheh...I didn't know those acronyms either! I am actually glad.
Too many abbreviations... I know some of the chat based ones, but I'm rather clueless when it comes to the real world ones.
I love Wikipedia. I was recently looking up Egyptian God mythology. Why? you ask... because I'm obsessed with Lost.
WITAAJPS... AL
BSALOI
Well, I think abbreviations are just plain stupid... and lazy. But save a lot of ink.
As I remember from my English classes, the polite thing to do in writing with abbreviations is that you give the full name with "hereafter ..." and the abbreviation in parentheses. It is soooooooooo inconsiderate of serious writers to do otherwise.
i hate abbreviations too! I am OOTL most of the time.
LOL (the one I do know), I too am OOTL. I was completely confused when my young women used the word "COW"(Crush Of the Week).
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