Trivial things that make you annoyed beyond expectations?

[Andy in Germany]

Germans love acronyms or abbreviations, probably because of all those incredibly long words, or as we would call them in English "Sentences without spaces"

A personal favourite is "Pzkpfw" which is supposed to be a shortened form of "Panzerkampfwagen"; Panzer=armoured; Kampf=fighting; Wagen=vehicle; i.e. a tank or armoured car.

I love the way that it's hardly any shorter than the original word written down, and it's even more of a mouthful to say...

 

[cougie uk]

And ironically “TLA” - oft used to mean “three letter acronym” - is not an acronym.

I have a Planet X TLA. Lovely bike.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

People who use them full stop!

You that busy you haven't got time to type out a reply in full ?

Then when asked what it means spend twice as long explaining or come up with some twatty response and a tutorial on how to use Google?

Google is an acronym

 

[DaveReading]

Google is an acronym

That will be news to Google.

 

[newfhouse]

And ironically “TLA” - oft used to mean “three letter acronym” - is not an acronym.

But curiously ETLA is.

 

[PeteXXX]

Google is an acronym

As is BING
Because it's not Google

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

PS Non-acronyms such as WTF are initialisms NOT abbreviations such as 'cal' (calorie)!

Nice pedantry

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

As is BING
Because it's not Google

Is that actually true???

I mean - I would like it to be but....

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Google is an acronym

I thought it was an accidental misspelling of googol that stuck

or is that another urban myth

 

[PeteXXX]

Is that actually true???

I mean - I would like it to be but....

Apparently, it's true ..

 

[Deleted User]

Google is an acronym

Didn't realise, what's the full name of it and I'll ensure I use it in future?

 

[figbat]

I thought it was an accidental misspelling of googol that stuck

or is that another urban myth

I believed it was a deliberate play on the word googol, implying the vast number of results that Google could bring.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I believed it was a deliberate play on the word googol, implying the vast number of results that Google could bring.

I recall reading that it was an accidental mis-spelling of googol which they liked and stuck with.
Apparently the previous contender for the name was ‘backrub’!

 

[matticus]

I recall reading that it was an accidental mis-spelling of googol which they liked and stuck with.
Apparently the previous contender for the name was ‘backrub’!

It's a shortening of "googleplex", which is a mis-spelling - spread by Douglas Adams in one of his Hitchhiker books - of "googolplex" (a huge number, please google it for details). I think.

I've known the word for more than 30 years (i.e. pre-Google :P ), and only recently found I'd been mis-spelling it ...

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Germans love acronyms or abbreviations, probably because of all those incredibly long words, or as we would call them in English "Sentences without spaces"

A personal favourite is "Pzkpfw" which is supposed to be a shortened form of "Panzerkampfwagen"; Panzer=armoured; Kampf=fighting; Wagen=vehicle; i.e. a tank or armoured car.

I love the way that it's hardly any shorter than the original word written down, and it's even more of a mouthful to say...

I love those crazy long German sentences and titles! We recently had to register our company with a local state tax office in Munich and the office was called something ridiculously grand.... Stadtfinanzamt mit Zuständigkeit für Bundesangelegenheiten or something like that.

And Viz magazine used to occasionally invent them for their dictionary, they were surprisingly convincing. I think they had bog cleaner down as "Toilettenkabinenreinigungskraft-schiessenmeister"