Do you have trouble with acronyms?

[ShawnFuzz]

I will start by saying that I have a complete mental block when it comes to acronyms. And it drives me nuts!!

Do any of you struggle with acronyms, too?

It took me years of reading the acronym "NYE" before I figured out it meant "New Year's Eve". My mind automatically went to "New York" plus a word with an "E". Entertainment?

The current one I keep seeing is "IP" when people are discussing movies or video game franchises. I actually Googled this one, and I still couldn't remember what "IP" means. I am just going with "InterPlanetary".

A coworker turns everything into acronyms, and I can't handle it. I never know how to interpret all of the notes that are left to "help" me.

Am I the only one? Or does anyone else share this frustration?

 

[Seastar]

For me, it depends on the acronym. New ones keep being invented and I get lost if I run into one I don't know. Same with slang. Sometimes I have absolutely no idea what younger people are saying.

I will admit I don't remember what IP stands for. I know what it means in that context, but not what two words it is. It gets more confusing since "IP address" exists and is different. There's also a game I played where IP is a currency.
Shared acronyms can get confusing.
Is AC "air conditioner", "Animal Crossing", or "Assassin's Creed"? It's usually obvious by the context, but sometimes you never know.

 

[nightglow]

Most I don't know and Google if I can't figure it out through context. If the acronyms are excessive I ignore the person.
---
In the case of work, that is unprofessional and really should be written out. Especially if it is a help guide.

 

[Chris]

Acronyms take me forever to drill into my head.

For several years I worked in in-vitro diagnostics. Every pathogen name is abbreviated. E.g. EBV = Epstein-Barr Virus, HCV = Hepatitis C Virus, HPV = Human Papillomovirus, etc. And we had hundreds of them on hand and unless you were assigned a particular project (for example I spent several months re-evaluating our in-house hepatitis C assay) you could easily be assigned a different one everyday. In one role I was most frequently assigned STI (sexually transmitted infection) samples to run, but even with a limited scope it was still hard to wrap my head around them all. Everyone else just seemed to have them all memorised! Then on top of that they abbreviated every piece of paperwork and process. It was a challenge to get started in that field because for my first few months of team meetings I had no clue what anyone was talking about!

My biggest challenge recently though comes with the abbreviations I see online! I don't understand most abbreviations young people use nowadays.

 

[lasagne_of_death]

Depends. Obviously I know the common ones, and I'm usually good enough at figuring them all out, but it gets confusing sometimes when the acronyms are really similar, like "omg" being "oh my god" and "ong" being "on god". And sometimes the acronyms are acronyms for slang terms that I haven't heard of so I definitely don't have a chance. But often times it's easy enough for me.

 

[azurill]

My memory is bad enough without having to try and remember acronyms. I am so bad at trying to figure them out. I end up having to look them up then usually forget what they mean again.

 

[Croconaw]

I’ll usually Google acronyms I don’t know. I just know the common ones, like “LOL” and “BTW.”

 

[Doo]

"ong" being "on god".

oh. All this time I thought that was a typo
I guess we can say no, I’m not good with acronyms

 

[VernalLapin]

Sometimes I guess? They can be very annoying, especially when they’re reused. There’s only so many possibilities.

 

[seliph]

I don't actually have trouble with acronyms but I love calling our POS (point of sale) system our "piece of ****" system.

 

[thatawkwardkid]

For the most part I'm fine but I got annoyed the first time I found out that on Reddit they use ETA to mean "edited to add" because I grew up knowing it as "estimated time (of) arrival".

 

[Snowesque]

Most I can figure out, at work it's annoying though as then I feel as if I'm the only one asking "What did they mean??" lol.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Only acronyms I struggle with are the ones in text messaging and internet and ones I’ve never seen before. I don’t text too often so stuff like smh and byob tend to confuse me if I’m reading something quickly. NYE and more commonly used acronyms I can understand.

 

[Kitsuragi]

The current one I keep seeing is "IP" when people are discussing movies or video game franchises. I actually Googled this one, and I still couldn't remember what "IP" means. I am just going with "InterPlanetary".

IP means Intellectual Property. Legally, this includes trademarks, copyrights, and patents.
i don't struggle with acronyms, i just wanted to point this out lol

 

[QueenCobra]

I don’t unless I come across one I’m unfamiliar with. The titles of TV shows tend to have long ones, which is kind of hard if you don’t know the show.

 

[S.J.]

Acronyms help condense common terms and information in my written work, so I'm a big fan of acronyms when the first instance of an acronym is written in parentheses so there's no confusion.

I can see it being frustrating and confusing when that's not the case, particularly if the same acronym is used for multiple terms, and you're not familiar with them! In my line of work, I'd assume IP would mean intellectual property, but I imagine in my BFF's line of work, it would mean internet protocol. Different fields, different terms, same acronym!

 

[ShawnFuzz]

Acronyms help condense common terms and information in my written work, so I'm a big fan of acronyms when the first instance of an acronym is written in parentheses so there's no confusion.

I have been meaning to bring this up!

I was taught that if using an acronym, you spell it out in full the first time, and then put the acronym in parentheses. That way, from then on the reader knows what you are referencing.

But these days, I rarely see that grammatical courtesy. Authors seem to assume we all know what they mean from the start.

 

[michealsmells]

Acronyms are the worst. I can connect the acronym to what it refers to in general, but never the exact words that make it up. My dad, who works in tech, be pulling up THE most insane, long-winded acronyms in the world. I'm just like... what are you yapping about. Just say the dang words!!!!!!

 

[LambdaDelta]

there's like 7 completely different archetypes in yugioh that all qualify under being labeled as a "ss" deck when played, so that's fun

 

[Xara]

I had a kind of similar experience with NYE. A book I read growing up had NYE in its blurb, and for some reason my brain went "New York... Eve?". I knew that NYE was New Year's Eve, but I think I saw "The New York Times Best Seller" on the back and my brain just got caught up on New York LOL. I still cringe thinking about me asking my mom "what's New York Eve?"

But for the most part, I'd say I'm decent at understanding acronyms. I'm able to figure out what most mean relatively quickly based on the context they're used in, even ones that are new to me, but Google comes in handy when I can't figure one out. Acronyms are hard, especially ones that could mean more than one thing. I feel like there's a new acronym or slang word every 5 minutes, and it is!! hard to keep up!!