One Of Life's Unanswered Puzzles.
Internet2 mins ago
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.A lot of acronyms have come about for convenience in emails and texts and I don't know most of them - I only found mout what LOL meant recently (I thought it might be "Looney On Line" - it did seem to fit). A useful one I do know when condemning someone else's posting as unbelievable rubbish is WALOB.
I thought the words to the Dad's Army theme (who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler) went "Mr Brown goes off to town and 'e ain't 21" (It's "Mr Brown goes off to town on the 8:21") - but it fits!!
My physics teacher scribbled over my homework once and made the comment "DNA" at the end. The homework was nothing to with that field and I had to crawl up to him to ask for an explanation. He said, in a loud and measured voice "Do NOT abbreviate!!!!"
Not funny, necessarily, but perhaps a little human interest (as Benny Goodman once said after an anecdote died on stage).
until i was about 13 i thought that chimney was chimley as thats what it sounded like everyone was saying (it took me a long time to accept the truth!). When i was very little i thought that all the food we ate was recycled poo, i remember saying to a friend "where do you think food like....um....potatoes and carrots comes from?" then sort of working it out once i thought about it for a bit! there are so many more but i just can't think of them!
I used to do this sometimes so I gradually made a list, which is now here http://groups.msn.com/davidskingsburycollection/uselessinformation.msnw
it contains over 300 of the exact type of initials you describe (would have been more, but the page was full up).
Seeing that posting about Bohemian Rhapsody (BTW it's "Spare him his life for his pork sausages") reminds me of other song lyrics. What is it, exactly, that Desmond Dekker's wife and kids do when his ears are alight?
First, I thought LOL was Lots of Love. But considering the context that would mean Looney on Line. That made me Laugh Out Loud.
The mishearing of lyrics is called mondegreens, and there are hundreds of sites with examples, these are just a couple...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/31/DD214263.DTL
http://www.fun-with-words.com/mala_mondegreens.html
Regarding LOL, a guy at work used to put that in e mails to me and I thought he was coming on to me until someone told me it meant laugh out loud. Not sure how I was supposed to know that given what he had written was not funny!
I found this:
http://www.amiright.com/misheard/artist/dekkerdesmond.shtml
So many in one song - I'm not the only one who thought that his wife and kids f****d off and left him!! And I thought they had baked beans for breakfast.
And on a more sombre note - how long did I try to work out what the letters YHWH stood for? - good God!!.