4 ms·

"AIUI"? What's that now? Ok, googled it, wait for it... "As I understand it". Whew!

• coldpie 12y ago
  Thank you. IRDUTPOTOA (I really don't understand the point of these obscure acronyms).
  • Afton 12y ago
    That's because you find them obscure. If your community used them more frequently you would just read them in place, like people do with IANAL, LGTM, AFAIK, etc. Incidentally, I didn't understand this one, but I don't blame OP (oops, I mean 'original poster') for misunderstanding the linguistic norms of HN (hacker news).
    • sigzero 12y ago
      Just spell it out!
    • lione 12y ago
      Incidentally, first time I've seem LGTM, had to google it.
      • vacri 12y ago
        .lgbt as a gTLD? LGTM.
    • TeMPOraL 12y ago
      I agree. Nowdays I read things like "IANAL" or "AFAIK" as words, not acronyms. When one reaches this point, such acronyms are pretty convenient.
  • philh 12y ago
    They're faster to type, and I suspect I find them more pleasant to read (this is hard to test). AIUI, IIRC and similar are good disclaimers to make, but they're basically boilerplate, and don't need to take up lots of space. Similarly, compare "(c) 2015 philh" to "this post is copyrighted by philh, as of 2015".
    • sib 12y ago
      <trivia> Interestingly enough, (c) 2015 philh does not meet the requirement. You need either the word, copyright, or the actual copyright symbol. </trivia>
      • heinrich5991 12y ago
        IIRC you don't need any of this, you will still hold copyright to what you have produced. This is just a friendly reminder to your readership.
        • colinbartlett 12y ago
          IANAL but I believe you are correct although you get some extra legal protections by including the notice (which only need include the word or symbol and the name and year). Namely, an infringer cannot claim they did so accidentally... or something like that. FWIW.
        • Natsu 12y ago
          Correct. The Berne Convention did away with 'formalities' like having to register your copyrights in order to hold them. You still need to have a registered copyright to sue for statutory damages in the USA, though.
      • InclinedPlane 12y ago
        No, you do not. Any work you do is automatically under copyright as long as that is a reasonable expectation (given a site's TOU, etc.)
  • hamburglar 12y ago
    They're a significant indicator that you're reading a message from someone who doesn't mind inconveniencing an unknown number of people to gain a negligible benefit for themselves. :) Or, at least, this is what I remind myself when I catch myself using them. Typing is not a hardship. I spend time trying to come up with the absolute clearest way of writing what I'm trying to say, so why would I then take a step backwards (potentially) in clarity just to save myself three seconds of typing?
  • plaguuuuuu 12y ago
    fgsfds!