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Friday, December 17, 2004
Nudge nudge, wink wink, tee-hee Okay, I know, this means I am very, very, very immature, but still: I ran one of my pet Perl programs to list the abbreviations in a Bible dictionary I'm working on, and as I'm skimming over the "T" section my mind stops and does a full boggle: TPINTC appeared 1 timesWait a minute, did I just see what I think I saw? TWAT appeared 1 timesHoly shit, I did. Of course, I've got to look it up in the abbreviation table now: "See TDOT"? You bet I'll see it: Ah, the perils of multi-lingual and cross-cultural acronyms..."Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament" looks perfectly innocent, doesn't it? And the acronym is probably as unobjectionable in German as TDOT is in English. But TWAT in English...now, that's funny. At least for an American copyeditor on a Friday afternoon at the end of a long week. Yes, I know, I'm five years old. (I've had enough trouble not snickering at one of our own project names: the Theological Workbook of the Old Testament, or TWOT. The acronym doesn't look bad, but if you say it out loud it sure sounds like "twat." We very carefully refer to it as "Tee-double you-oh-tee" without anyone coming right out and saying "I guess we don't want to say anything that sounds like 'twat' to the Christian publishing clients, do we?") While I'm at it, I may as well add that I still think it's amusing that the book of Titus is abbreviated "Tit," and Hosea is "Ho" or "Hos," and Judges is sometimes "Jgs," which looks an awful lot like "Jugs." And I love the fact that there's a Biblical town called "Shittim," and everyone who publishes a Bible or a biblical dictionary or concordance or commentary has to print it. And I think it's high time I took my dirty mind home now. [ at 6:06 PM • by Abby • permalink • ] |
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