acronyms versus abbreviations

[Mark A. Mandel]

I wrote:

#POSSLQ = /'pas at lkju/ = "possle Q", official U.S. Census (I think) -ese for
#"person of same sex sharing living quarters".

Larry wrote to me off-list:

#Hmmm.  Great minds thinking not-quite-alike, it would seem.  Are you sure it's
#"same" and not "opposite"?  I thought the whole point was to adopt it as a
#euphemistic reference for those of us hets who were shacking up in those days,
#not for the more frequent case of sharing a place with a same-sex roommate
#(with or without hanky-panky involved).

oops. yup. i was fixating on the "s s" of "same sex". you're right.

P erson of
O pposite
S ex
S haring
L iving
Q uarters

m a m

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org