OK, someone's gotta post it

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Aug 30 01:09:22 UTC 2008


>On Aug 29, 2008, at 5:30 PM, Larry Horn wrote:
>
>>AOTY (acronym of the year) candidate--or is it intialism of the year?
>>In either case, it is, of course,
>>
>>VPILF
>>
>>or maybe it's VPilf
>>
>>(which unpacks just as you'd expect, even if you don't know how to
>>pronounce it).
>>
>>There's even a corresponding web site:  http://www.vpilf.com/
>>
>>Remember, you read it here first, unless you didn't.  And given where
>>we've been the last eight years, I'm pretty sure this one didn't
>>exist before today.
>
>no doubt inevitable, given MILF and FILF/DILF

right, a couple of my students included "DILF" in their new word
journals, and that was 5 years ago.  But at least MILF and DILF are
clearly acronyms.  I'll keep my ear out for VPILF.  Maybe it's a
combo acronitialism like "K-Fed" and such:  /'vi:pIlf/.

>and who knows what
>others.  such filfy words!
>
There's also PILF, for Professor I'd etc.  But also, evidently, where
P = "President" [Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina],
and...um...Platypus.  Whatever turns you on.  (And yes, for the more
innocent, "pilf" is also attested, barely, as a back-formed verb.)

LH

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