Saturday, May 26, 2007

ACRONYMS

It looks like there is no escaping acronyms.

When I started my first job, I wondered if they were speaking the same English that I was taught at school. "OK LT, Please LTHL L9384729 ready for GYAT. And then bring it along for RRP". I soon learnt and after awhile it became second nature and it was my family that wondered what I was talking about.

The period we lived in Klang was relatively acronym free. The only ones used there were OK and A/C. Nobody said anything like "Lets have some BKT"...They would just say "Lets have some Bak Kut Teh"

Here in Palembang....its both the merging of words as well as acronyms. "When is your ulta?" The only word remotely resembling ulta that I know of is unta (I think), which means camel. I don't have a camel! Turns out that ulta is short form for ULang TAhun (birthday). Geez! And then there are the acronyms PIM, PS, PTC, etc etc....and the harder part to is is that they pronounce all their alphabets using phonetics. Guess what my HAR PEH is?

Lately, I've been getting addicted to the Australian Breastfeeding Association Forums and there is a whole new set of acronyms to learn there as well. Here are just a few:

AP - Attachment Parenting
ABM - Artificial baby milk (formula)
CC - Controlled Crying
CCC - Child Care Centre
CIO - Cry it out
DH - Dear Husband
DW- Dear Wife
DP - Dear Partner
DS - Dear Son
DD - Dear Daughter
DF - Dear Fiance
DB - dear boyfriend
DSD - dear step daughter
DSS - dear step son
EBM - expressed breastmilk
LO - Little one
SAHM - stay at home mum
TMI - Too much information
WAHM - work at home mum

I should try to write an entire post purely in acronyms and abbreviations...but then again, I won't. I hate it when other people get carried away with all the sms style writing when there is a perfectly comfortable keyboard to use.

No comments: