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Programmers and technicians use
acronyms or abbreviations to reduce lengthy and complicated terms to
manageable proportions. Some, when spelled out, are reasonably
self-explanatory, such as GUI (graphical user interface). Other, like
CORBA
(common object request broken architecture), are rather harder to visualise
and remember. Not all acronyms are technical. In NEWSGROUPS you may come
across figures of speech such as IMHO (in my humble opinion) and IYSWIM
(if
you see what I mean). The popularity of CHAT, in particular, has stimulated
the creation of many less useful examples. BRB, for instance, is short for "
be right back", an indication that its author may have found something more
useful to do. |
