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

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

In which case, it seems a shame that TMBSNMOTWfooOWIWNPA has fallen out of common use.

I know it fails the "readily parseable" test, but still, it was once (within a particular community) in common use.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

there's a bit of pratchett where one of the nac mac feegle is doing some exclaiming, and he winds up "imhoe", and I pass that as "IMHO" every time.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I was about to cite that one as the longest readily-parseable acronym/initialism I commonly see. There are places where it hasn't fallen out of use.

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

I think that's deliberate, isn't it? I always assumed so, anyway.

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.

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

Also "SPMTTBICPC"

(Some people might think that but I couldn't possibly comment). Not widely used, certainly, but well understood in particular communities.

[liv]

Some people say BANKRUPTMYPANTS which is a sort of distorted acronym for "Been Away, Kan't Read all Ur Posts, Tell Me if You Posted Anything I Need To See".

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Cool :) What is it? I don't recognise it.

That of course raises another interesting question. Considering the amount of redundancy in an acronym, it's amazing that sometimes you can guess what they mean, from recognising a common combination of letters, guessing a couple of words and then the phrase.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I guess there are sometimes ELOELOPPP.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

ROFL. Maybe we should confiscate their internets and they'll stop? :)

It reminds me of old acronyms like "Sealed With A Loving Kiss", but longer, ruder, and typically the name of a city. As parodied in Terry Pratchett, and with NORWICH. Alas it's impossible to tell which were actually used at the time: wikipeda doesn't even try, it just says "The acronyms, possibly including some more recent additions"; it's always difficult to tell the difference between a contemporary dirty joke and an anachronistic dirty joke :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

And could easily be combined with one or two others. "BOFH: 'IMNSHO, PEBKAC IYKWIM'. TANSTAAFL." :)

Some people might think that but I couldn't possibly comment

Ooh, yeah, definitely fills a useful gap :)

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

This Must Be Some New Meaning Of The Word foo Of Which I Was Not Previously Aware

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course! Thank you. I should have realised. And obviously failed to look it up, because I didn't know foo was a regex (and if I did, google still can't google them.)

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

I think that's deliberate, isn't it? I always assumed so, anyway.

could be - it fits in context iirc. I don't know how to tell :-)

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

not that kind, but it can do this: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22TMBSMOTW*OWIWNPA%22 (although the one hit doesn't actually have the decoding)

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

(and YKYBfooTLW ... )

[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.