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Comment by Dylan16807 | Hacker News Reader

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a much more accurate term. You can get it with no shells, after all. And "trauma" is not a very soft word.

Is the problem just shortening it because it takes too long to say?

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Initialisms in common speech are the linguistic equivalent of a code smell; people are right to react negatively towards them (and the appropriate degree of negative reaction increases with the length of the initialism in question).

No they aren't. RSVP, DIY, PhD, ASAP, BYO, TMI... there's no reason to dislike them any more than there's a reason to dislike adjectives.

It's a very American thing to pepper your speech with euphemistic initialisms, a lot of people outside the US find it cheesy and annoying.

RSVP is from French.

I wish I could cleverly work in a "QED" here (from Latin) but it just doesn't fit.

I was talking about spoken language, not the existence of initialisms per se. Though I'd wager they are a lot more prevalent in written American English than in most other languages as well. Nobody else would think of inventing an initialism-euphemism for body odour (which I guess already is a euphemism for "smell" for example. Or "significant other".

By the way, QED is just a calque from Greek. (Like most things Roman...)

Stupid Americans and their checks notes acronyms.

Can you find a non-American that doesn't find it cringe to use "BM" for "poo"?

>Can you find a non-American that doesn't find it cringe to use "BM" for "poo"?

As an American, I'd find it hard (at least in my circles) to find an American who doesn't find it cringe worthy.

In fact, I don't think I've heard anyone use that term in at least forty years.

They are quite prevalent in Russian as well (though I am not sure if American English is actually “peppered” as you claim).

Funny, when I was born and grew up outside the US it was very common there too. Perhaps you'd like to scope your claim down to a specific group of people who find it annoying?

PTSD is an acronym, so it hides the meaning, restricts the awareness. The name itself kind of sucks too.

Horrors of War Syndrome would probably be better.

Again, that might work fine for veterans, but not for victims of peacetime rape and horrific accidents who have similar symptoms. The syndrome needs a common name, like: he has “the horrors”.

But... you can get PTSD from lots of non war scenarios. Rape, abuse, injury and accidents, loss of loved ones, etc.

But how do you end up with Horrors of War Syndrome after being in a car crash?

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