IHNC, IJWTS
Dec. 4th, 2008 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThe longest acronym[1] I see regularly is some variant on "I have no comment, I just wanted to say" followed by a witty comment. The question is, have you seen something longer that's readily parseable without having to work it out (presumably made up from shorter well-known acronyms like this one, though I guess could be an abbreviation of a well-known long phrase).
[1] YKWIM. Pedants might[2] argue that an acronym has to be a word made up of initial letters of a phrase. Since I find it convenient to use "acronym" for common initial letter abbreviations like "IMHO", I will justify it thusly. In normal English, being pronounced is a good guide to being a word, making "laser" an acronym but "eff bee eye" not. However, on the internet, you don't have to pronounce things, so any collection of letters where the whole has an assigned meaning can be a word, whether it's pronounceable or not, so "IMHO" is a word, and hence an acronym :)
[2] OK, change that to "pedants will". OK, OK, "pedants have argued that...", etc. I might even stretch it so far as to say "pedants have argued correctly that..." :)
[1] YKWIM. Pedants might[2] argue that an acronym has to be a word made up of initial letters of a phrase. Since I find it convenient to use "acronym" for common initial letter abbreviations like "IMHO", I will justify it thusly. In normal English, being pronounced is a good guide to being a word, making "laser" an acronym but "eff bee eye" not. However, on the internet, you don't have to pronounce things, so any collection of letters where the whole has an assigned meaning can be a word, whether it's pronounceable or not, so "IMHO" is a word, and hence an acronym :)
[2] OK, change that to "pedants will". OK, OK, "pedants have argued that...", etc. I might even stretch it so far as to say "pedants have argued correctly that..." :)
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Date: 2008-12-04 09:46 am (UTC)I was going to mention the same one as mobbsy above, but I'll also mention TANSTAAFL which is the same length as the one you quote in the subject of the post, but (IMO) more widely known.
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Date: 2008-12-04 09:47 am (UTC)(Some people might think that but I couldn't possibly comment). Not widely used, certainly, but well understood in particular communities.
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Date: 2008-12-04 10:51 am (UTC)Some people might think that but I couldn't possibly comment
Ooh, yeah, definitely fills a useful gap :)
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Date: 2008-12-04 01:02 pm (UTC)could be - it fits in context iirc. I don't know how to tell :-)