this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Fuck Cars

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[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world -1 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

People sometimes say SMH like this for emphasis. Another one I’ve seen is “SMHing my SMH”. It’s not meant to be literal. It’s similar to when an acronym becomes its own word, like ATM machine.

[–] xeekei@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

ATM ain't an acronym. Neither is SMH.

[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] xeekei@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

No. Acronyms are words, it's in the "nym" part. Initialisms where you pronounce each letter individually are not acronyms, since they ain't words.

[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world -2 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Sorry, that’s not correct. Acronym is the word we use for both when it forms a word and for an initialism. They are all acronyms. Perhaps next you’ll tell me that decimate means reduce by ten percent?

[–] xeekei@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 hour ago

Ah, the "language evolves" defence. How come everytime it evolves it's in the less useful direction?

[–] YouShouldSeeMyAlt@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

@xeekei@lemmy.zip is right.

An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a single word.

An abbreviation is a shortened version of a word or phrase used to save time and space, avoid repetition, or follow convention.

All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms.

SMH and ATM are both abbreviations. NASA, radar, laser etc. are all acronyms.

[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world -1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

As I said, that is not correct. Language is how people use it, and people use the term acronym to describe all of these things. This is not a technical discussion.

[–] YouShouldSeeMyAlt@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

Ok, but you're still technically (and factually) wrong.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago

Exactly! It’s similar to that kind of thing.

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I don’t know what that emoji means, sorry. Have you never encountered this before? Acronyms sometimes transition into their own words that are divorced from the original meaning.

ATM originally meant automated teller machine, but after it took on its own separate word identity, people started adding in machine. It’s weird If you know the original acronym, but it’s a natural phenomenon.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 hours ago

It's a weird fucking acronym. I have never in my life hear a person actually say "shaking my head" but apparently some people say it SO FUCKING MUCH that I was seeing "SMH" for ten years before I even knew what it meant.