[conspire] POTS - acronym overload ... & overload ...

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):

> Many times, e.g. coworker, will ask me something like:
> "What's <some acronym>?", and my response is generally:
> "Context?" ... as often I can think of more than one
> possible - and even feasible and possibly relevant - match,
> for the supplied acronym.  So, context matters(/helps).

A longstanding problem with a standard (and more than adequate)
solution:  Unless it's an acronym everyone in the likely audience will
understand implicitly, like "IBM"[1], you pair the acronym with its
expansion on first use in a piece of writing, and then may politely rely
on the acronym thereafter.

The only people who fail to grasp that _any_ word's meaning is
of necessity context-dependent, and that this is utterly normal,  are
extremely young people and those among us on the Aperger's spectrum.


[1] Of course, if speaking of the International Brotherhood of
Magicians, clarification is in order.