text message abbreviations used in speech!

[Mike Brisbin]

I don't know if anyone has seen this one, but if TLA is old maybe you have
not seen AFA (Another F'n Acronym)
I stumbled onto this one about 2 years ago.

Mike Brisbin
Toronto, Canada

At 12:02 PM 24/05/02 -0400, you wrote:
>"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