Acronymity
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Abner Li, "Google Messages adopts double FAB to promote Gemini", 9to5google 6/26/2024:
Gemini in Google Messages exited beta at I/O 2024 last month and now features a double FAB design.
In a rather prominent push, the “Start chat” floating action button now has a smaller Gemini FAB just above it. When you’re dealing with the rectangle, the square looks misaligned. Everything is visually correct upon scrolling.
There’s some precedent for this look in Google Drive where the “New” FAB is paired with a scan shortcut. However, the camera disappears when scrolling.
I guessed after reading this passage that FAB is an acronym for "floating action button". Or rather, it can be. In a tech context it might also be (an abbreviation for) "A manufacturing plant which fabricates items, particularly silicon chips", which is how I first tried to interpret that article's headline. And it could also be at least 73 other acronyms, initialisms, or abbreviations, according to acronymfinder.com — a list that doesn't yet include "floating action button".
In fact, most 3-letter sequences have already got several interpretations Out There, as discussed in "Ambigous initialisms", 7/21/2019. Here are 10 chosen literally at random, following by the number of interpretations available at acronymfinder.com:
MVX 2
XJR 1
IMC 143
FUH 0
WAW 19
ZXW 0
RVD 24
AVB 26
JJI 4
ESQ 9
And acronym-finder is far from complete, so that its 0 counts are often actually Out There — in this case FUH and ZXW.
Tim Rowe said,
June 29, 2024 @ 7:13 am
Of course, in computing circles a three-letter abbreviation is called a TLA. And an abbreviation of more than three letters is an ETLA – Extended TLA.
Philip Taylor said,
June 29, 2024 @ 7:42 am
Well, Q-codes are not acronyms, of course, but I cannot help but mention my favourite : QUQ = "Shall I train my searchlight nearly vertical on a cloud, occulting if possible and, if your aircraft is seen, deflect the beam up wind and on the water (or land) [so as] to facilitate your landing?", to which the reply can be QUQ = "Yes, please train your searchlight nearly vertical on a cloud, occulting if possible and, if my aircraft is seen, deflect the beam up wind and on the water (or land) [so as] to facilitate my landing".
David L said,
June 29, 2024 @ 4:34 pm
I don't where TLA originated but I'm familiar with it from federal government circles, on account of the numerous agencies, organizations and so on.
Viseguy said,
June 29, 2024 @ 5:20 pm
Comforting to know that there are only 17,576 possible TLAs, based on the 26-letter English alphabet — because that puts a ceiling on PREs (Painful Reading Experiences).
Mark Liberman said,
June 30, 2024 @ 5:49 am
@Viseguy: "Comforting to know that there are only 17,576 possible TLAs, based on the 26-letter English alphabet — because that puts a ceiling on PREs (Painful Reading Experiences)."
Do TLAs with medial '&' count, like A&E?
How about B2B, or Y2K?
So it might be worse…
Viseguy said,
June 30, 2024 @ 6:58 am
@MYL:
"Do TLAs with medial '&' count, like A&E?
"How about B2B, or Y2K?"
This is at bottom a QOT (Question Of Taxonomy). I see the MEA (Medial Ampersand Entity) as a TCA (Three Character Acronym) (and if I'm wrong, MEA CULPA). B2B fails the UUT (Utter Unintelligibility Test) due to the HNI (Homonymic Numerical Interject), which makes it more BE9. Y2K is a MIC (More Interesting Case); there, the "2" is, obviously, not an HNI but a EDA (Entirely Different Animal). Let me close by emphatically writing out Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
John Swindle said,
June 30, 2024 @ 7:00 am
@Philip: Wonderful! Would the query take a question mark, "QUQ?"? Of course if it's spoken there won't be explicit punctuation.
Viseguy said,
June 30, 2024 @ 7:04 am
Uh-oh, I see that I made a DTE (Dyslexic Transpositional Error). MAE CULPA.
Philip Taylor said,
June 30, 2024 @ 7:04 am
No "di di dah dah di dit" needed, John. The question comes from the ground station, the answer from the aircraft.
Alex Shpilkin said,
June 30, 2024 @ 9:05 am
In writing, capitalization usually distinguishes a Material-design FAB from a silicon fab, so the purely combinatorial account of TLAs would need to be adjusted for that somewhat. Don’t know if and how people pronounce “FAB”; they definitely do “fab”, and the potential ambiguity with the slang term for “fabulous” doesn’t bother them.
TLA (specifically as an acronym) always felt like hacker-culture usage, what with its pleasant self-applicability, and was definitely popular there. Unclear if that’s actually where it originated, though.
Yves Rehbein said,
July 3, 2024 @ 12:35 pm
I have recently noticed someone wrote LLog here on LL.
Chas Belov said,
July 5, 2024 @ 3:31 pm
Speaking (okay, writing) as someone who is acronym-challenged (or, technically, initialism- and acronym-challenged), I am appalled by this writing style.
The practice we recommend at work is to expand on first use and immediately follow with the acronym in parentheses. So:
becomes
The advantage of this is that the reader does not need to backtrack to decode the acronym.
As for multiple-meaning initialisms, ATM could be:
Automated Teller Machine
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
Adobe Type Manager
although I think that last is long gone and context would be likely to distinguish the other two.
ASSOL and Assol | Never Pure and Rarely Simple said,
July 5, 2024 @ 8:08 pm
[…] A recent Language Log post discussed the fact that one acronym can have many different meanings, after Mark Liberman encountered FAB (in this case, ‘floating action button’) in a tech news article (in fact there’s a ‘double FAB’). He linked to a previous post on the same topic, where, in response to a comment, he said that a famous local example is ASSOL. I couldn’t even guess at the meaning of that, but an internet search came to the rescue finding: […]