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addict
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tsuwm wrote: hyla, I only quote myself to reinforce this point.
I think I was writing my post while you were posting yours, which has caused me a bit of confusion. Someone (perhaps wow?) called it an acronym, I started to reply, got distracted, and a few minutes later finished posting. In any case, we're in agreement. I think. About something.
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stranger
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Is there a specific term for collections of letters such as this one, which tend to be specific to the internet, which actually stand for a sentence (as in YCLIU) or a phrase (YART)?
Macronym?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Goatboy: When I started this thread back in January, I despised acronyms, and I despise them now even more. Over fifty years ago there was an excuse for using acronyms, because for instance in Ham Radio it took up to seven keystrokes to produce a single letter. Now with word processors acronyms are a stupid annoyance. When I come to a monstrosity like the one in the subject line, I refuse to waste my time on it, and conclude that the sender was sufficiently arrogantly inconsiderate that I make no attempt to read his message. F word him or her.
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Agreed, Bill. When those "in the know" speak in acronym, they leave others "in the dark".
Thank you, goatboy. If you hadn't brought this thread up to current date, I'd have never found it, and would be tearing out my limited hair trying to decipher these darn acronyms. (I'm losing enough sleep anyway over "abceghilnoprtuy", but that's another thread.)
EDIT, in recognition of Sparteye's note below:
I clearly mispoke when refering to "these darn acronyms".
The techically correct phrase is "these F__ acronyms".
Enough acrimony.
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Pooh-Bah
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So, can one letter constitute an acronym?
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Dear wow: I repent my venom for that particular one, which I had forgotten was yours. But the very fact that I forget them so easily is the thing that makes them drive me nuts. I hate it inagazines too, when they use them in the first paragraph, and five or six paragraphs later I have having to go back to first paragraph and spend more time than it is worth to find the lousy acronym. I wish I were capable of buying you a drink.
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When those "in the know" speak in acronym, they leave others "in the dark"And there, perfesser, in a nutshell you have half the magic of language: for anyone still naive enough to believe this is a medium of communication, I would respectfully point out that exactly half of language effects are designed to define ourselves and therefore by implication define the outsiders. U and non-U, in a thousand tribal contexts! Communication in neat and continual apposition to obfuscation! Yah gotta just learn to roll with the punches, an' keep on laughin, guys! This is a secret code we're using, and my version (or idiolect, as was noted the other day) does not ever correspond exactly to yours... speshully damerkins 
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And the bdelygmia content of many acronyms is far too high.
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When I come to a monstrosity like the one in the subject line, I refuse to waste my time on it
Which was, in my first exposure to it, simply a bar joke. Its self referentiality can hardly be considered any attempt to exclude anyone from meaningful discourse. It was meant as an attempt to put lecherous sailors in their place relative to the hot barmaids. I am reminded of an attempt by a lecherous sailor to gain the good graces of a hot barmaid by presenting her with a card that read, "If You Want To Go To Bed With Me, Smile And Give This Card Back To Me; If You Don't, Tear It In Two And Throw It Away." The card was made of a material that was impossible (or so the lecherous sailor thought) to tear. The hot barmaid looked at the card, tore it in two and threw it away. She knew the trick of nicking it with a fingernail before attempting to tear it.
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veteran
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I imagine you have all noticed that government and other bureaucratic types are, of all people, the most fond of speaking in acronym. Worse yet, they are addicted to the constant use of abbreviations, form numbers, grade/position designators, etc. instead of using real words. While I'm willing to believe that a good bit of the time it's just an unconscious, although deplorable, habit picked up from being immersed in such a milieu, I also suspect that there are plenty of times when this is a code designed to keep outsiders from understanding what is being said. What is any normal person to make of something like "Reimbursement to GS13s or higher is made on WW55 or BA22-8 supported by dec from indig supp."
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