Are you annoyed that I used an acronym as my title without telling you what the letters represent?

I feel your pain.

In fact, that pain is the whole reason for this post and the point of the title - which, expanded, means What the Fuck Does Your Acronym Fucking Stand For?

I was compelled to write this because I was yet again sent fruitlessly down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what an acronym stood for.

Do I really need to explain why, when you’re using an acronym, you should at least once expand it to show what the letters represent?

Sure, there’s exceptions. Like when an acronym is so broadly known that it’s better known as an acronym than as a series of words (e.g. DNA), or you’re trying to conserve characters in a text or tweet (e.g. ICYMI).

And there’s situations where a person uses a non-expanded acronym because they want to show they’re members of a exclusive club with special knowledge (e.g. NFT), but I don’t think that’s laudatory.

Otherwise, tell me what your acronym stands for. It’s respectful of your readers because they won’t feel like idiots for not knowing what the letters mean (or won’t feel frustrated or annoyed, per the two instances of “fucking” in this post’s expanded title).

By expanding it you won’t risk it being confused with a competing acronym (ye olde disambiguation). And in a web context it’s good for SEO, and its just generally good practice to feature the expanded acronym somewhere prominently when used on a web page - like the first fucking paragraph of your about page, and/or your fucking <title> tag.

Alas, good practices are not always followed and so this isn’t the last time I’ll complain about an unexpanded acronym. But at least from hereon in on I’ll be able to simply point to this post when I feel the need to do so.