There were a few people who went by initials – JFK, LBJ (the president, not the basketball player), FDR and MLK – but most "acronyms" of names were just the person's first two initials: O.J. Simpson. P.T. Barnum. H.G. Wells. C.S. Lewis.
It was a simpler time. Or a more complicated time? I'm not sure. I just know that in the texting era, we've had an explosion of acronyms (or initialisms. Acronyms are words you can say, like SCUBA or RADAR; initialisms are just initials, like . . . virtually everything I've described as an "acronym" so far. But in popular culture, we call initialisms "acronyms." And in popular culture, we use them occasionally. JK. We actually use them all a lot. LOL. ROTFL).
As an old person, I'm the guy shaking his fist at a cloud as younger co-workers consistently use FWIW and IIRC and IMO, requiring me to Google the phrases or ask them to further explain. Why not just use words?
This is not quite as bad as using only emojis to communicate (another old-man rant), but close. ICYMI, the most recent acronym/initialism that I used means "in case you missed it." In my opinion, IMO is a silly way to say, "I think." But if I remember correctly, people use IIRC to avoid doing research and for what it's worth, FWIW is a way to express an opinion without accountability.
Unscramblerer.com, a website that ... unscrambles things? ... recently released a list of the most-searched acronyms, both by state and for the nation. I got the California list, but I presume that if I lived in Mississippi, I'd get that state's list. FWIW, I'd never live there. LOL. ROTFL.
When looking at the list, the first thing that jumps out at you is the number of obscene phrases that have acronyms. I knew some of them (I know that WTF doesn't stand for Wednesday-Thursday-Friday), but many obscene acronyms were new to me. And frankly, I wouldn't really be able to guess many of them.
Others seem silly, acronyms/initialisms for phrases that I'd never say in real life. For instance, the most-searched acronym in California is OTP, which means . . . one true pairing.
What?
Who says that? Is that about finding a soul mate? Is it about matching wine with the meal? Is it about Steph Curry and Draymond Green? IDK . . . which is either I don't know or John F. Kennedy's secret brother Issac Donald Kennedy.
Other acronyms for phrases that aren't said (which brings their prominence into question) are WYLL ("what you look like?" which irritates me because it sounds like a caveman), FS ("for sure") and ATP ("at this point," although it's also the "Association of Tennis Professionals." )
Ultimately, I've probably contributed to the list circulated by unscramblerer (important note: It's unscramblerer, with the extra "er" on the end. I don't know why, or simply IDK why), since the list is the most popular Google search terms. In other words (IOW?), the most common acronyms–LOL, FTW, OMG, TBH–are widely known and people don't need to do searches. So people like me (those ranting that the world was better when we used full words, watched 13-inch TVs, ate canned vegetables and believed that menthol cigarettes were good for our throats) are consistently looking up acronyms to understand what our co-workers, children or grandchildren mean.
FWIW, I often refuse to look them up, too. At work, I will simple instant message back, "I don't know what that means," to my colleagues, requiring them to reply with the correct words and then to complain to whomever is near them that the old man at the office doesn't know what TFW means (joke's on them! I know it means the airport near Tallas, Texas: TFW because it's for both Tallas and Fort Worth!).
IDK what to do with this info, but FWIW, it doesn't really matter.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
