On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:57:37 GMT, notbob > wrote:

>On 2009-10-08, sf > wrote:
>
>> PS: I'm so sorry those women's magazines have to save paper to stay
>> in business. God forbid they should use waste paper by using an
>> actual name. HRT is not AIDS, USA or IBM and people/publications who
>> use the term without defining it first are NOT enlightening their
>> readers, just annoying them.
>
>Unfortunately, it's becoming all too common. I think it's either
>laziness or arrogance, mor than anything else. I read many technical
>articles, online (no paper), where the author throws out acronyms like
>rice at a weddding. No definitions, so I have to take time out to
>look 'em up. Worse, you have to include a related term to narrow your
>search or you end up on a page that lists several dozen of the same
>acronym, some so bizarre you end up looking those up too, just to
>satisfy your own curiosity. If the acronym has been mentioned in a
>related referenced article or post, that makes it fair game.
>Otherwise, it should be defined before using.
>
>Now, what was it? Hargreaves Recumbent Trombones?

It is the entropy of laziness - now a days people are in too much of a
hurry to spell things out or assume that since they know what the
acronym is 'everyone' should know what it is. I suppose one could also
attribute it to the decline of literacy brought on by SMS and twitter.

Used to be it was bad form not to accompany an acronym with the the
phrase fully spelled out the first time it was used in a communication.

for example: HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) ... or
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) ...