text message abbreviations used in speech!

[Mark A Mandel]

"A poll of 1,000 staff published yesterday showed that use of the terms
was rife in media and marketing firms, with finance sectors close
behind. "

Is anyone surprised at that?

"Acronyms are now used by more than 70 per cent of employees and are so
popular they have own abbreviation, TLA (three letter acronyms)."

The _Times_ is way behind the times if they think "TLA" is new!

I suppose I should give up on arguing that abbreviations aren't acronyms
unless they're pronounced as words. In this article, "YOYO" probably is
and "TOTB" probably isn't. Only two of the seven abbrevs mentioned are
actually three letters long, one of them being "TLA" itself. But it
wouldn't surprise me if it's been lexicalized and bleached to apply to
all of them regardless of length.

-- Mark A. Mandel