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

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

563 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] -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Mine are "lol" and "lmao". I get what they originally meant, and I get why most people use them nowadays. It's just that they often signal "I have nothing to contribute, but still expect people to read my crap".

As a second (third?) place, "WYSIWYG". If you're going to coin such verbose acronym, might as well sub it with an actual word, like, dunno, "transparent".

EDIT - "lol" = "lots of laughs", "lmao" = "laughing my arse off", "WYSIWYG" = "what you see is what you get".

EDIT2: as another poster correctly pointed out, "lol" also originally meant "laughing out loud". Perhaps even more than "lots of laughs".

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Isn't lol short for "laughing out loud"? Or have I been wrong for like 20 goddamn years?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

No. You're quite correct.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

You and me both! I always heard "laughing out loud" as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Isn’t lol short for “laughing out loud”?

Wiktionary lists both "laughing out loud" and "lots of laughs". Nowadays though it's neither; on a pragmatic level it doesn't convey "I'm laughing" / "I laughed", it conveys amusement and/or lack of seriousness, depending on the context.

[Alice] The Sun is a star.
[Bob] yeah sure the sun only appears at night lol (implying: "I'm amused at what Alice said, and I don't take it seriously.")

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I actually kinda love WYSIWYG because it’s pronounced “wizzy-wig” in some circles and that always makes me chuckle

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I don't even recall pronouncing it in loud voice. In English I simply say "what you see is what you get", and in Portuguese or Italian I rephrase it. (Although I remember at least one person calling it ['vizi 'vige] in Portuguese. And I was, like... "what?")

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Are there circles in which it's NOT pronounced like that?

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

What about ROFL?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Not common in general usage nowadays. Perhaps it avoided the shift?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

WYSIWYG, when pronounced, sounds like an Irish town with weird spelling. Like Northern Whisyghwhikh, Dublin county