4 ms·

Technically it should be LASER, since it's an acronym.

sleavey 6y ago
I am part of an organisation called the LAAC, which is the LVK Academic Advisory Committee. The LVK is the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration. LIGO is the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory, and Laser is Light Amplification from Stimulated Emission of Radiation. So the L of LAAC is a 5th order initialism...
- jandrese 6y ago
  It makes you want to address a paper to: Light Amplification from Stimulated Emission of Radiation Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory-Virgo-Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector Academic Advisory Committee. It's like looking at the preprocessor output from some template heavy C++ code.
- porphyra 6y ago
  Reminds me of GTK which stands for GIMP Toolkit where GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program where GNU stands for GNU is Not UNIX where UNIX stands for Uniplexed Information and Computing System And on top of that there is a variety of software built on GTK whose names are acronyms containing a G that stands for GTK.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
porphyra 6y ago
By now the word laser is so common that it is a just an uncapitalised word accepted by major dictionaries [1][2]. There are also inflections (lased, lasing) [3]. Nobody spells it in all caps now. Likewise with radar and soon lidar. [1] https://www.lexico.com/definition/laser https://www.lexico.com/definition/laser [2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser [3] https://www.lexico.com/definition/lase https://www.lexico.com/definition/lase
phailhaus 6y ago
It's since entered the vernacular as just "laser". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser
- syncsynchalt 6y ago
  We've even backformed a verb, "lase".
  - phailhaus 6y ago
    English does whatever the hell it wants, doesn't it
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Razengan 6y ago
You know what gets me though? When they say “laser” (however capitalized) in sci-fi stories that are set in a different universe... Or any other terms that specifically evolved in Earth societies and cultures, like “katana” in Dungeons & Dragons and so on.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > any other terms that specifically evolved in Earth societies and cultures That's true (pretty much by definition) of literally every word in English, though. (Yes, "katana" is a english word; the fact that it's derived from a japanese word (namely "刀" aka "かたな") doesn't change that, any more than "pizza" (italian) or "beef" (french, a long time ago).)

I am part of an organisation called the LAAC, which is the LVK Academic Advisory Committee. The LVK is the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration. LIGO is the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory, and Laser is Light Amplification from Stimulated Emission of Radiation. So the L of LAAC is a 5th order initialism...

jandrese 6y ago
It makes you want to address a paper to: Light Amplification from Stimulated Emission of Radiation Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory-Virgo-Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector Academic Advisory Committee. It's like looking at the preprocessor output from some template heavy C++ code.
porphyra 6y ago
Reminds me of GTK which stands for GIMP Toolkit where GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program where GNU stands for GNU is Not UNIX where UNIX stands for Uniplexed Information and Computing System And on top of that there is a variety of software built on GTK whose names are acronyms containing a G that stands for GTK.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

porphyra 6y ago

By now the word laser is so common that it is a just an uncapitalised word accepted by major dictionaries [1][2]. There are also inflections (lased, lasing) [3]. Nobody spells it in all caps now. Likewise with radar and soon lidar. [1] https://www.lexico.com/definition/laser https://www.lexico.com/definition/laser [2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser [3] https://www.lexico.com/definition/lase https://www.lexico.com/definition/lase

phailhaus 6y ago

It's since entered the vernacular as just "laser". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser

syncsynchalt 6y ago
We've even backformed a verb, "lase".
- phailhaus 6y ago
  English does whatever the hell it wants, doesn't it

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Razengan 6y ago

You know what gets me though? When they say “laser” (however capitalized) in sci-fi stories that are set in a different universe... Or any other terms that specifically evolved in Earth societies and cultures, like “katana” in Dungeons & Dragons and so on.

a1369209993 6y ago
> any other terms that specifically evolved in Earth societies and cultures That's true (pretty much by definition) of literally every word in English, though. (Yes, "katana" is a english word; the fact that it's derived from a japanese word (namely "刀" aka "かたな") doesn't change that, any more than "pizza" (italian) or "beef" (french, a long time ago).)