YYAT (Yet Another Acronym Thread)

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

Well, it's an euphemism. The real meaning has another word starting with
F.

I was actually referring to the fact that I had asked you, instead of
searching the fine, fabulous, fantastic web. Again, thanks.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Slartibartfast <[email protected]> spoke thus:

What the heck is STFW anyway?

ITYM WTH is STFW )

 

[Joona I Palaste]

I was actually referring to the fact that I had asked you, instead of
searching the fine, fabulous, fantastic web. Again, thanks.

It only just occurred to me that STFW is an answer to the question
"what does STFW mean?".

 

[Arthur J. O'Dwyer]

Christopher Benson-Manica scribbled the following:


It only just occurred to me that STFW is an answer to the question
"what does STFW mean?".

And "what does WDWSF stand for?" is an answer to the question "what
does WDWSF stand for?"

-Arthur

 

[Joona I Palaste]

And "what does WDWSF stand for?" is an answer to the question "what
does WDWSF stand for?"

Only if you take "W" as an acronym for "WDWSF". Which is more common
practive, abbreviating an acronym to its first letter, or abbreviating
it to itself? I've seen both used.

--
/-- Joona Palaste ([email protected]) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"A bee could, in effect, gather its junk. Llamas (no poor quadripeds) tune
and vow excitedly zooming."
- JIPsoft

 

[Justin Robbs]

Don't forget WMLOG ("without much loss of generality") and WTMLOG
("without too much loss of generality"). (While the terms are perhaps
not in live use, the concepts are quite familiar, f'rexample assuming
INT_MAX>CHAR_MAX. Assuming a hosted implementation probably falls into
this too.)


dave

--
Dave Vandervies (e-mail address removed)

You're implying that there's only one option. I can offer several:
--Peter Seebach in

comp.lang.c

Be sure to watch out for Acronym Letter Transposition Syndrome
(SALT). This is all to common among tech types.

justin

 

[Peter Shaggy Haywood]

Groovy hepcat Tak-Shing Chan was jivin' on Sun, 7 Dec 2003 20:39:18
+0000 in comp.lang.c.
Re: [OT] Re: YYAT (Yet Another Acronym Thread)'s a cool scene! Dig it!

Depending on your definition of ``acronym''.

The pocket Dictionary, Australian edition:
acronym n a word (eg radar) formed from the initial letters of other
words

The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary:
ac-ro-nym n[C] word formed from the initial letters of a name, eg NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Do you have any other definition of "acronym"?

--

Dig the even newer still, yet more improved, sig!

http://alphalink.com.au/~phaywood/
"Ain't I'm a dog?" - Ronny Self, Ain't I'm a Dog, written by G. Sherry & W. Walker.
I know it's not "technically correct" English; but since when was rock & roll "technically correct"?

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

My definition doesn't matter. Can you find any reputable dictionary
claiming that "abbreviation" and "acronym" are synonyms? Because what
you have posted is a list of abbreviations.

``acronym: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the
initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or
^^^^^^^^^^
major parts of a compound term.'' [http://www.m-w.com/]

According to this definition, LUSER is a valid acronym for
``Local USER''.

Tak-Shing

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

Dear c.l.c regulars,

Here is a Dan Pop approved list of comp.lang.c Frequently
Used Acronyms:

AFAICT As Far As I Can Tell
AFAIK As Far As I Know
AFAIR As Far As I Recall
AIUI As I Understand It
ANSI American National Standards Institute
BTW By The Way
C&V (abbreviation for Chapter and Verse)
C89 (abbreviation for ANSI X3.159-1989)
C90 (abbreviation for ISO/IEC 9899:1990)
C99 (abbreviation for ISO/IEC 9899:1999)
c.l.c (abbreviation for comp.lang.c)
DR Defect Report
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
IANAL I Am Not A Lawyer
IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
IIRC If I Recall Correctly
IMHO In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO In My Opinion
IOW In Other Words
ISO (abbreviation for International Organization for
Standardization)
ISP Internet Service Provider
N869 (abbreviation for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14/N869
Committee Draft - January 18, 1999)
NA Normative Addendum (for ISO/IEC 9899:xxxx, e.g.
ISO 9899:1990 + TC1 + NA1 denotes a version of
Standard C that is in common use today)
OP Original Poster
OT Off Topic
OTOH On The Other Hand
PITA Pain In The A**
POV Point Of View
RFC Request For Comments
RT(F)FAQ Read The (F******) Frequently Asked Questions
RTFM Read The F****** Manual
TC Technical Corrigendum (for ISO/IEC 9899:xxxx,
e.g. ISO 9899:1990 + TC1 + NA1 denotes a version
of Standard C that is in common use today)
WRT With Respect To
WTF What The F***
WTH What The Hell
WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get
YMMV Your Mileage May Vary

Tak-Shing

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

Increasing or decreasing order of relevance?

Decreasing, I think.

Tak-Shing

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

The pocket Dictionary, Australian edition:
acronym n a word (eg radar) formed from the initial letters of other
words

The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary:
ac-ro-nym n[C] word formed from the initial letters of a name, eg NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Do you have any other definition of "acronym"?

Merriam-Webster: acronym: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu)
formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the
successive parts or major parts of a compound term

Tak-Shing

 

[Keith Thompson]

According to this definition, LUSER is a valid acronym for
``Local USER''.

It would be if that were the actual derivation. The word "luser" is a
combination of "user" and "loser". The "Local USER" derivation is
somebody's failed attempt to be clever.

 

[Keith Thompson]

The pocket Dictionary, Australian edition:
acronym n a word (eg radar) formed from the initial letters of other
words

The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary:
ac-ro-nym n[C] word formed from the initial letters of a name, eg NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Do you have any other definition of "acronym"?

Merriam-Webster: acronym: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu)
formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the
successive parts or major parts of a compound term

That definition is essentially equivalent to the others.

The point is that some people incorrectly use the word "acronym" to
refer to abbreviations that are formed from initial letters, but are
not pronounced as words (such as AFL-CIO, NAACP, and so forth).

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

It would be if that were the actual derivation. The word "luser" is a
combination of "user" and "loser". The "Local USER" derivation is
somebody's failed attempt to be clever.

I believe that the validity of acronyms has nothing to do
with their original derivations. Case in point: FUBAR is a valid
acronym for at least four different derivations.

Tak-Shing

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

That definition is essentially equivalent to the others.

The point is that some people incorrectly use the word "acronym" to
refer to abbreviations that are formed from initial letters, but are
not pronounced as words (such as AFL-CIO, NAACP, and so forth).

None of the definitions quoted in this thread mentioned
pronunciation at all. In addition, according to Merriam-Webster
(Word for the Wise, August 28, 1997):

``It's possible to divide acronyms into initialisms, initial
letters pronounced with letter names, and word acronyms,
pronounced as words. We think the division doesn't need to be so
sharp and prefer to think of particular acronyms as falling
somewhere along a spectrum.

``At one extreme are terms that show their alphabetic
origin, like TB (for tuberculosis) and PDQ (for pretty damned
quick). Sometimes, as with TNT, folks are more familiar with the
acronym than with the source word (in that case, trinitrotoluene,
the compound in the explosive).''

Source: http://www.m-w.com/textonly/wftw/97aug/82897.htm

Tak-Shing

 

[Dan Pop]

Dear c.l.c regulars,

Here is a Dan Pop approved list of comp.lang.c Frequently
Used Acronyms:

Bullshit. It was merely a suggestion for a list of c.l.c frequently
used abbreviations, based on your initial proposal. Nothing more and
nothing less.

Dan

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

Bullshit. It was merely a suggestion for a list of c.l.c frequently
used abbreviations, based on your initial proposal. Nothing more and
nothing less.

OK, I rephrase: ``here is a list of c.l.c Frequently Used
Acronyms + Abbreviations, with input from Dan Pop and others.''

Tak-Shing

 

[Dan Pop]

None of the definitions quoted in this thread mentioned
pronunciation at all. In addition, according to Merriam-Webster
(Word for the Wise, August 28, 1997):

``It's possible to divide acronyms into initialisms, initial
letters pronounced with letter names, and word acronyms,
pronounced as words.

This is at odds with the Merriam-Webster definition quoted above, because
it says that acronyms may or may not be words, while the definition
requires the acronym to be a word (see also the associated examples).

There is no reasonable way to claim that things like BTW and RTFM are
words of the English language, because that would effectively mean that
*any* combination of letters is an English word (once you can imagine
an expansion for it).

Dan

 

[Tak-Shing Chan]

This is at odds with the Merriam-Webster definition quoted above, because

Not true. This is at odds with your definition of ``word'',
but perfectly compatible with the quoted definition.

it says that acronyms may or may not be words, while the definition
requires the acronym to be a word (see also the associated examples).

No. It says that acronyms may or may not be *pronounced as*
words. It does not say that acronyms may or may not be words.

There is no reasonable way to claim that things like BTW and RTFM are
words of the English language, because that would effectively mean that
*any* combination of letters is an English word (once you can imagine
an expansion for it).

According to Merriam-Webster, a word is ``2 b (2) : any
segment of written or printed discourse ordinarily appearing
between spaces or between a space and a punctuation mark.''
Therefore BTW and RTFM are words.

Tak-Shing

 

[Mark McIntyre]

sheesh, lighten up will you? It was obvoiusly a tongue-in-cheek
comment, intended probably as a /compliment/ for goodness sake.

OK, I rephrase: ``here is a list of c.l.c Frequently Used
Acronyms + Abbreviations, with input from Dan Pop and others.''

Don't bother, being nice to the guy is a waste of electrons.