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.

[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]

I guess there are sometimes ELOELOPPP.

[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.