IHNC, IJWTS

[jack]

The 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..." :)

Comments

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

Longest I've used is probably TILPDRaAoOLJC which I used on a Christian board (and possibly my journal), I think original in dicussions of the relative importance of the incarnation and crucifixion and came out of my desire to emphasise the importance of the whole lot -- it means 'The Incarnation, Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ'. I think I typed it in full the first time and then abbreviated it for the rest of the post. oOLJC (of Our Lord Jesus Christ) or even oOLaSJC (and Saviour) occur in conjunction with various things on one board I post on.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

The other longish one that occurs on those boards is 'ITTIWACW' for 'I thought that it was a Christian Website'. This phrase is used a lot by newbies who don't get the unrestful nature of those particular boards and has thus become a catchphrase amongst longer term posters.