# Contextual acronyms should be fine **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 8, 2023, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272 "2023-10-08T14:54:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 56
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/56 "2023-10-08T18:51:20Z")
Perhaps you’re right. Rather than “I’ll be here pointing out how ignorant you are.” a better way to say it for _most_ posters is more like "“I’ll be here demonstrating how much I didn’t take you and folks like you into consideration when I wrote my post. Brevity over courtesy FTW.” To be clear, I use a lot of acronyms on SDMB. But I try, and even usually succeed, at noticing that I’m using them and providing a decode or cite or something. And especially for the less than utterly obvious ones. YMMV of course. We’ve had threads and threads on how much acronymic explanation is appropriate where. With zealots on both sides. We all might enjoy these two, one in ATMB last year and one in the Pit from the year before that add up to 325 mostly serious posts on this matter. IMO those of us who refuse to read the past are doomed to repost it: > [@On the use of acronyms](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-acronyms/969310): > > Can we come to any sort of consensus regarding good form in the use of acronyms in posts? Some readers seem to get terribly upset when people use acronyms without defining them. But if we have to define every acronym in a post - or eschew acronyms entirely - then it’s going to get awfully wordy around here. No more USA, NATO, Washington DC, JFK, GDP, FCC, EPA, RADAR, and so on. On the other hand (OTOH), there are some truly esoteric acronyms that the average reader will have never encountere… > [@I Pit ILMVI for Complaining Incessantly About Acronyms](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-ilmvi-for-complaining-incessantly-about-acronyms/943142): > > ILMVI, please, for the love of DOYC, stop derailing threads to gripe about acronyms (or, for that matter, [legalese you don’t understand](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-american-with-a-40-year-old-dui-in-america-visit-canada/943054/28)). I have gotten so sick of you disrupting threads over [your pet peeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pwua-people-who-use-acronyms-and-terms-they-assume-people-will-know-spoiler-they-dont/839030/53) that I have had you on ignore for months now (honest: that’s the only reason, I can’t stand your moaning about acronyms). But apparently even that’s not enough. Because every time you drop a squat in a thread over someone’s use of an acronym (and so frequently in situations where its meaning… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272)._