Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Pet Peeve: Acronym Misuse

[Actual work status omitted. Bonus internet status provided instead]

Today's status message is written in HTML language for the WWW web.

Explanation: It just drives me batty when people misuse acronyms. This happens all the time at work, but I don't want to post anything internal on the internet, so I'll just complain about "ATM machines" instead. An acronym should be able to be expanded into a string of words and still make sense in the context in which it was used. For example, "I got money out of the ATM machine" would expand to "I got money out of the automated teller machine machine." People do this all the time. You don't say "I'm from the USA America." You don't say "I'm making a PB&J jelly sandwich." Why would you say "ATM machine?" Jeez. Think before you speak, people!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out this TV vision show on the CNN network about how a Navy SEAL land went MIA action in the USSR republics because his SCUBA apparatus malfunctioned during a SAR rescue mission.

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