quare ACRONYMS: We had a reader call us recently to ask what a common acronym meant. We were taken aback. In our business, everybody knows that UPMC is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

We don’t always remember that normal folks might not deal with the healthcare giant as often as we do.

In many cases, the Associated Press (AP, as it is commonly referred to) says that acronyms are common enough that we don’t need to spell them out, like A ARP and FBI. Some of the more common ones for us though, like FCI — Federal Correctional Institution — we spell out. In retrospect, that seems odd, because most people understand what that means.

We commonly think of state agencies in alphabetical terms — DCNR, DEP, DCED — Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Community and Economic Development.

There are some we think are common, but don’t translate well to others. We remember an instance many years back when a member of the Knights of Columbus called The Era for us to run a meeting reminder. The young reporter heard KFC instead of K of C and, sure enough, wrote Kentucky Fried Chicken.

In today’s world of text speak, we confess to being confused the first time someone told us ‘BRB.’ Huh? It didn’t occur to us it was ‘be right back’ until the person was back and explained it.

There’s a whole separate language of text speak, which younger folks often say as well as write — LOL, OMG, BTW, PDA, TMI. Those mean, according to Google, laugh out loud, oh my goodness, by the way, public displays of affection and too much information.

Seems like there’s always new tricks for this old dog to learn.

Contact The Era at: Business office/814-368-3173 Newsroom/814-362-6531 news@bradfordera.com X

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