From: Bob_Hallissy@sil.org
Date: Tue Oct 23 2007 - 08:16:41 CDT
Philippe Verdy wrote:
> "FWIW". What does this mean? Please avoid such non trivial abbreviations
> (they are even less trivial or non-native English readers,
I do not doubt the difficulty that such acronyms give non-native English
readers, but think about this: even native readers of English can't guess
these, so the difficulty for them is not significantly less than for
non-native readers.
Face it: everyone who knows what "FWIW" means had to look it up or be told
at some point -- you're no different from anyone else in this regard.
> I'm fed up of seeing more and more unexplained acronyms appearing
magically
> in some message and SMS-like "language" in mailing lists;
Sorry, but you're out of luck: The world today is full of such -- (Even
you use acronyms: "SMS") -- and you're not going to convince the world to
stop using them.
You'd be far better off to get over your grudge, find a good reference,
and start learning.
> I do really hate the SMS language,
FWIW, the particular acronym you questioned has been around long before
SMS. I remember seeing it used in the 70's on usenet.
>and probably, many native English readers too.
You hate many English speakers? Sorry to hear that (no, I really knew what
you meant -- just teasing a little ;-)
> You are
> forcing them to look for their definitions elsewhere, and decipher what
you
> mean, and many be this acronym has several unrelated meanings,or may be
> offensive in some interpretations.
I'm a native English speaker in my 50s and I *still* have to do this
regularly -- both for English words and acronyms. Just learned "barista"
recently, for example (surprising, given my love of good coffee!). Online
dictionaries and acronym finders are one of the top hits on my browser
favorites list.
Bob
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