AST (Acronyms Save Time)

     I was sitting at a restaurant one afternoon, eating a BLT, when I got an email from a friend . He said, "RSVP to my party, so I can know how much food to buy. It is from 6:00-9:00 P.M. Reply ASAP.

P.S feel free to bring your own food." I finished my meal, tipped the waiter, and left for my new job at NASA.

     I was sitting at a restaurant one afternoon, eating a Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich, when I got an email from a friend. He said,"Répondez, S'il Vous Plaît( French for respond please) to my party, so I can know how much food to buy. It is from 6:00-9:00 Post Meridiem (Latin for afternoon.). Reply As Soon As Possible.

Post Script, feel free to bring your own food." I finish my meal, To Insure Prompt Serviced the waiter, and left for my new job at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

     As you can see, acronyms are used all the time, but where did they come from? One of the first acronyms was SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus or senate of the roman people). Acronym comes from the Greek words akros and onoma, which means topmost name. The idea of the acronym was still in use by the mid 1800s in the American and European business communities. Today, there are still some companies that we know as acronyms. An example of this is AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph).

     Today, we use acronyms not only in speech, like tip and BLT, but in writing. With the 120 character limit on websites, people are beginning to use acronyms to get their point across as quickly as possible. Acronyms have created the terms LOL, BRB, and G2G, because either you only have a certain amount of characters that you can use, or you want to type something out quickly. For example, who really wants to write United Nations over and over again? Why not UN? or instead of British Petroleum, why not BP?

     Of course I must venture into the extremes of every subject; I cannot resist. So, here is the world's longest initialism(acronym) according to the Guinness Book of World Records, NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT. It is from the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology, and means, The laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR.

     So there you have it, a brief explanation of how common and helpful acronyms are to us. I hope to BRB with a new blog post soon, and it should be more interesting than this one or any other one, I assure you!

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialism