Abbreviations have become one of the special banes of my life. The Chinese - especially Chinese "academics" - seem to have a particular predilection for them. And they rarely observe the sensible convention of only using one after using the full name/phrase for which it stands on its first appearance in their text. And they are, of course, hopelessly dyslexic - or, rather, just astoundingly inattentive and uncaring - in their use of them: you see UNSECO, and you assume they probably mean UNESCO.... but sometimes you have to check, just to be sure (because sometimes they mean UNSCO!). I spend far more time on Acronymfinder than is good for my mental health.
In the IT industry - in which I have often worked here, because it is one of the few sectors to apply a decent amount of money to staff training - the use of acronyms has got completely out of hand... moving from tic through fetish to incessant compulsion. Three-word phrases are especially beloved by the computer nerds. When I worked as in-house training co-ordinator for one big American software developer, I discovered they had evolved so many of the damn things that they actually needed a company directory to keep track of them all - a very substantial volume.
It was called 'The List of TLAs'. That's Three-Letter Acronyms. True story.
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