Nicholas Thompson wrote:
The purpose of acronyms is -- present company exempted! -- to solidify
an ingroup by being unintelligible to outsiders.
If an `ingroup' can communicate concisely and accurately about things in
the world that individuals not in the group cannot, then that group has
achieved compression -- they are a community of experts. That's if
their shared knowledge and context is large and complex. If not, then I
agree that what has actually been achieved is encryption.
Marcus
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