Slashdot Mirror
Geekspeak Baffles Web Users
An anonymous reader writes to mention a BBC article on the technology buying public's continued frustration with 'geek speak'. Despite ever-increasing adoption of high tech gadgets in first-world nations, the terms used to describe what these new toys do often elude the people who buy them. From the article: "Acronyms in particular foxed users. 75% of online Britons did not know that VOD stands for video-on-demand, while 68% were unaware that personal video recorders were more commonly referred to as PVRs. Millions of people keep in touch via instant messaging but some 57% of online Brits said they did not know that the acronym for it was IM. 'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster. "
I know of at least a couple of non-techie writers whose disdain for the tech industry went up a few notches after not only finding out that all-caps TWAIN was not an acronym, but also that some jokers made up the backronym "Technology Without An Interesting Name" in response to everyone who expects a series of capital letters to be an acronym.
For example:
AIREVACCONFIRM
MARCORMATCOM
SCATMINEWARN
These and many others are available here.
I suppose it's worth mentioning that TLA isn't a TLA. Well, it's not the TLA you think it is. It's a Three-Letter-Abbreviation
The correct term for what you're talking about (an abbreviation that isn't pronouncable as a word, like "wtf") is an initialism .
Those of us who use a thesaurus can fake it with perfect spezzatura!