Actually, it was “Etiem fix everything!”
To this day, there are certain people in my social circle who can’t help but quote that whenever a trip to “Etiem” is necessary. 
Sometimes dictionaries are just wrong.
I’ll stick with the OED as the gold standard:
I give up. What’s wrong with those definitions of abiogenesis?
Sometimes dictionaries fall behind actual usage. The solution is to turn to a newer and more up-to-date dictionary.
If you go to dictionary.com and look up acronym, you’ll find this:
And what happens when one sees TLA?
Modern practice has changed the meaning of the term. The dictionaries will change to reflect usage. Guaranteed.
Bullshit. Some “dictionaries” are sloppy, in that they simply accept misuse as proper use. This perpetuates the problem. And using “Dictionary.com” as support for any argument is about as persuasive as using Wikipedia to support an argument.
But I know you hate prescriptive grammar in all its aspects, including word meanings, so I won’t bandy words on the subject beyond this brief post. For, of course, at the heart of the matter, you are accurate about one thing: what people say is rarely based upon what is prescribed to be correct, and with time, misuse can become accepted use.
But only idiots say PIN Number, or ATM Machine.
(ducking the brickbats of the “idiots”) 
It’s almost never referred to as a discredited theory or synonymous with spontaneous generation. In modern biology, abiogenesis has a different definition altogether.
Dictionary.com doesn’t seem to be very up-to-date given its definition of abiogenesis. Are you accusing the OED of not keeping up to date with word definitions?
Or give definitions that aren’t part of the vernacular or don’t agree with more revered dictionaries. Guaranteed.
The OP of this thread…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=408935&highlight=redundonym
…was trying to start a Wikipedia page for his own invented term “Redundonym”. He failed, but the thread has a bunch of good ones, if you’re interested.
(For the record, the Wiki page that ended up winning out was RAS Syndrome.)
All modern dictionaries are descriptionistic in usage. They collect cites of how people actually use the language and when a usage looks to be permanent they include it in the dictionary. This does not make it right or not right. That’s a different subject.
Virtually every single word in the English language (except for a few technical definitions) has the majority of its meanings arise from common usage adding to the original meaning. This is the English language. There is no part of English that exists outside of this historic context.
I’m sorry that you can’t accept this, just as I’m sorry that you seem never to have made any effort to learn about the history or the nuances of the English language.
Or for that matter that you don’t even seem to understand the function of dictionary.com, which merely reproduces the definitions of other dictionaries. Nor do you seem to understand that many different dictionaries exist because no two address the language in the same way, no two are equally current, no two have identical subsets of specialization, and no two will have exactly the same total set of modern meanings for words. When you learn what a dictionary is and how it functions, you may be able to add more than mere invective into a discussion of English usage.
So your point is that dictionaries are wrong because they haven’t caught up to modern usage for one word, but their not having caught up to modern usage for another word makes me wrong? You may want to rethink this argument.
You bet I am. Redoing definitions to account for modern usage is a hugely expensive and time-consuming process. The OED last did this in full for the second edition in 1989. Although there have been some continuing updating of the online dictionary, the full third edition will not be available for many years. I don’t think they’re even announced a target date.
That’s why I keep insisting that you have to check the newest dictionaries for the latest usage. Perhaps if I can get you to understand this you can explain to DSYoungEsq
You may want to re-think making straw man arguments. My point in telling you what was wrong with dictionary.com’s definition of abiogenesis was to answer your question, “What’s wrong with those definitions of abiogenesis?”. My original point was to show that some dictionaries give definitions that are just plain, wrong, inaccurate, or non-reflective of what’s used in the vernacular.
Using dictionary.com for a definition of ‘acronym’ when it clearly got ‘abiogenesis’ doesn’t necessarily make you wrong, but it doesn’t exactly say much for the reliability of dictionary.com.
You can pm other members of this board if you’d like something explained to someone. I’m betting when the OED does come out with a new edition, ‘acronym’ won’t reflect dictionary.com’s inaccurate definition.
I’ll take that bet in a second.
And stop calling it dictionary.com’s definition. It’s just a meta-search engine. I quite clearly labeled that definition as coming from the “Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.” Calling it dictionary.com’s definition is as accurate as saying that your false cites are Straightdope.com’s definition. Your inability to understand that basic reality of the site destroys any credibility you have in critiquing it.
I’m firmly with you on this one, Exapno Mapcase. I don’t have time to compose a meaningful contribution to the discussion at the moment, but I just wanted you to know that you’re not arguing into a void.
Btw, IAAL.
I call it the money machine, and use my access code.
But, I would not recommend that for anyone else.
Tris
I’m with Exapno too.
The fact is that spoken English is a lot more ambiguous than it seems. There is a lot of redundancy built into the language so your brain can make sense of it.
This can be tested by recording normal conversation, breaking up the recording into one-word pieces, playing the one-word pieces at random to an experimental subject, and having him or her try to guess what the words are. Most people get a significant percentage wrong.
Why? What reason do you have to believe that that one dictionary definition you found will be one that the OED will agree with in its next edition?
That’s nonsense and I think you know it. For all intents and purposes, it is a definition that dictionary.com is giving. Me critiquing the source as first party or third party is irrelevant to the fact that the only definitions given by the site for abiogenesis are inaccurate.
According to IMDb, Jim Rockford’s number was 555-2368.
Dictionary: n, A record of a moment in the history of a language, often confused by pedants for a rule book.
Tris:
“Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.” ~ Noah Webster ~
Already answered in post #47.
Thanks to those who wrote in support. 
Okay, I guess I’ll have to rephrase to get a meaningful answer from you:
Why? What reason do you have to believe strongly enough to “take that bet in a second” that that one dictionary definition you found is from a dictionary that collected cites of how people actually use the word ‘acronym’ and that that usage looks to be permanent and that the OED will follow suit in its next edition?
Because I pay attention to the language. The word acronym is used by everyone at all levels of formality. The word initialism is a pedantic rarity in normal conversation, in internet speech, in newspaper articles, and in books. (It’s not even in my spell checker!) Anybody compiling cites for a dictionary can find not a few but literally millions of examples of acronym’s everyday use as a collection of initial letters, word-making or not. (You might even remember the definition of TLA, three letter acronym, that I posted earlier. That alone would be enough for a definition and it is but a minor subset of the overall use of acronym.)
Proof? Here’s a one-click proof. Enter acronym into Google. There are enough examples of acronym in the sense I cite on the first page (of 50 hits) to make any lexicographer’s life easy.
That’s it. That’s all it takes. You just have to know how dictionaries work and keep your eyes and ears tuned to the way that words are used by real people in real communications. Dictionaries always lag years behind contemporary usage, but they will eventually catch up. Some already have. The OED will. It is not a bet. It is a foregone conclusion.