[BGood]

I'd like to know why so many acronyms are used in contemporary written English ?

Is it a fashion ? Is it laziness ? Is it contempt ? Is it inside code, only the initiated should know ?

In every forums that use English as a language, they are there, lurking around the corner, waiting to baffle you. If you don't know what it means, you scratch your head (I am developing a bald spot) and don't ask so not to look like a noob.

 

[Player99]

Not sure about all that but they make a fine pair of pants:
ACRONYM®

 

[vokey design]

Not sure about all that but they make a fine pair of pants:
ACRONYM®

They better be fine at 667 EUR!

 

[mhammer]

You don't know the reality of being drenched in acronyms until you've worked in government. " Speak to your DG's EA about setting up a bilat to go over the DPR, before it it goes to the ADM and up to the DMO. Did you talk to HR yet?"

 

[luker0]

You don't know the reality of being drenched in acronyms until you've worked in government. " Speak to your DG's EA about setting up a bilat to go over the DPR, before it it goes to the ADM and up to the DMO. Did you talk to HR yet?"

Sadly I understood that entire paragraph.

To the OP, welcome to the new world order. Acronyms started really coming into favor becoming the day of T9 texting on phones. You know when you had to hit the number 1 three times to get the letter C.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

[Budda]

To save space?

Also, if you dont know just ask.

 

[mhammer]

The thing I always wonder about is the correct usage of plurals in the context of abbreviations. Simply adding a lower-case 's' to a string of upper-case letters just looks wrong; like some sort of spelling error. And while I am prone to adding an apostrophe-s, that does not look right, either.

So, I just looked it up, and the consensus amongst grammarians and punctuation specialists is that one adds an apostrophe before the 's' where it could avoid potential confusion to the reader, and omit it wherethe risk of confusion is low: FAQs on Style

 

[laristotle]

Also, if you dont know just ask.

google's yer friend.

 

[bw66]

IC, D.

(Inside code, definitely.)

 

[Hammerhands]

I remember reading that in China, when everyone was texting on pagers, numbers were cheaper to send than letters so everyone was memorizing a system like the 10- codes they had for CB radios.

See Chinese Chat Codes. 01134 is hello.

CB slang was as colourful as it was useless and inscrutable. It mostly went away, too.

 

[BGood]

What made me start this thread was an ObG.

If you Google it it's nowhere near what it meant.

OnGuard Backup (Palm)
Old Government Building
OXFAM Great Britain
Optimized Gun Barrel
Old Gold and Black (newspaper; Wake Forest University; Winston-Salem, NC)
Open Gastric Bypass

So Google is not my friend in this case and many others. And even if it was, I don't want to have to search meaning for invented string of letters, just because the poster is lazy.

What do you think ObG mean, eh ?

 

[Budda]

A certain type of doctor.

 

[laristotle]

What do you think ObG mean, eh ?

Oldie but Goodie. (googled)

 

[LanceT]

Oldie but Goodie. (googled)

You only knew this because @BGood found all the other possibilities.

 

[laristotle]

%h(*&

 

[Hammerhands]

acronymony

 

[1SweetRide]

You don't know the reality of being drenched in acronyms until you've worked in government. " Speak to your DG's EA about setting up a bilat to go over the DPR, before it it goes to the ADM and up to the DMO. Did you talk to HR yet?"

That resembles my life.

 

[Mooh]

Older than the KJV.

 

[BGood]

I refuse to look up KJV.

 

[sulphur]

TL;DR