MYLF

[Drew Danielson]

ADS-L folks,

A question about how to describe a change in 'person' in an acronym
for a clause, using a real Internet-culture acronym:

>From an Internet forum:

Ant: When a MILF is referring to herself, shouldn't she say MYLF?

Diogenes:  Because, I think, you don't 'conjugate' the pieces of an
acronym. You have to consider the term a a whole. It's a label.
/

I partly disagree with Diogenes - I'd say that it's just as proper to
change the acronym to reflect the person speaking it and the subject
of which it's spoken.  But I also see the argument that since the
original acronym is a unit of meaning it should retain the 'original
spelling' regardless of speaker or subject.  I'm interested in reading
opinions, or rules that might already govern such instances.

The other part of this is, how do you refer to this change?  My first
thought was to call it declension, but there's no case change.  The
change is in the person of the verb (and also the pronoun, which is
the element that respells the acronym).  I'm leaning toward calling it
a conjugation because of this.  But since it's not truly a
conjugation, and since it effects the spelling of an acronym, is there
a better term to use to describe this?

Thanks,
Drew