When acronyms lose their original meanings: a post for your FYI
Sometimes I have to go looking for some sort of linguistic phenomenon to discuss, but other days, they seem to just fall into my lap. In this case, it fell into my inbox, in a mail from one of the school administrators:
…information about a new course…
This will not show up on the web until about the middle of next week, but is for your FYI.
FYI: An explanation of FYI
For those you unfamiliar with the English acronym, “FYI” stands for “For your information”. Generally, it’s just used to indicate that a message or bit of info is relevant to somebody. It started in the corporate world, but seems to have spread from there into everyday use. Here are a few usage examples from the EnronSent corpus:
enronsent27:28740:I received this today. FYI and follow-up if you’re interested.
enronsent42:12:4. FYI - Entities which have an asterik(*) are qualified in foreign jurisdictions and may, according to statute, need to file amended Certificates of Authority to reflect that they are now Manager managed.
enronsent43:24017:Thanks for the reminder. Just an FYI - it is not babysitting when it is your own kids. (Just kidding - wanting to share a pet peeve of my sister’s.)
Generally, it’s used in one of three ways. Sometimes, it’s used simply as an abbreviation, standing in for the full phrase, as in the first example above.
Other times, you’ll have an “FYI - ….information…” construction. Here, FYI (as a whole) means “The reason I’m sending this your way is because you probably want to know this”. See the second example.
Finally, FYI has become a noun for some people. You’ll get things like “This is just an FYI, but…” when somebody is trying to politely let somebody know of a hole in their knowledge of a situation. “An FYI” is a polite reminder or tidbit of information somebody might find useful.
However, I’ve never seen anybody say “For your FYI” before.
For your FYI? Call the department of redundancy department
“For your FYI” is a very interesting construction. I sincerely doubt that she was intending to say “for your for your information”, and I doubt that she was intending to say that the information was intended for our tidbit of information.
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t an isolated incident. A simple google search for “for your FYI” brought up several different sites containing the phrase (here, here and here), and even a CD titled “For your FYI”. On the site for the CD, there’s even a remark about the strangeness (and origin) of the title:
Exit 245’s second CD “For Your FYI” was released in 2001. The CD got it’s title from an email from current member Jason Robey who sent an email letting the group know “For their FYI” about an upcoming concert. The inside joke made it as the CD title and the disc features 15 songs a hidden track.
So, I’m not the only person who finds it strange.
Don’t worry, if you use it, I won’t call the Federal FBI
What’s happening here? Well, truthfully, I’m not sure.
One theory would be that people are forgetting (or ignoring) what people actually mean by “FYI”. Perhaps it is no longer viewed by this person as meaning “For your information”. Instead, it seems to have become an amorphous sort of word referring to “useful information”. Thus, what she really meant to say was “For your useful information”. Not terribly far from where we started, I know, but language works in mysterious ways.
I might be willing to chalk this up to linguistic randomness if “for your FYI” were the only case. However, this seems to be a trend. I found several google hits for “federal FBI” (federal federal bureau of investigation), and a handful for “hd drive” (hard drive drive). The people at PC Computer Notes (personal computer computer notes) might well be able to tell us something about this phenomenon, and it might be worthwhile to ask the next person you see discussing their “SUV vehicle” (sport utility vehicle vehicle). There might even be some posts made on language related web blogs (web web-logs) about it.
If you’ve got any ideas of what the linguistic explanation might be, I’d love to hear it As I said, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here. I just know that it’s happening, and it’s interesting to watch.
The moral of this story: keep your eyes open, you never know what sorts of interesting language you’ll find, even places as boring as your electronic email.
May 6th, 2007 at 9:19 am
it’s funny, the one that really gets me is when you see “with au jus” on a menu. But I really do think that it is just that people forget (or are ignorant of) the original meaning of the phrase, acronym or otherwise; it just becomes another lexical item on its own, and maybe eventually loses its semantic source. I can’t think of any examples where this has happened off the top of my head, but I know it’s happened. At any rate, it really is intriguing!
May 7th, 2007 at 1:58 am
Great blog you got here!
You caught me for a good 15 seconds on the title! I thought to myself, “…wait, what?” before I realized that it was the crux of the post beneath.
May 7th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Oh, even worse is when people pluralize stores and (more frequently) restaurants. I’ve never eaten at a Subways before, where’s that?
May 8th, 2007 at 8:49 am
I hate this website you don’t know anything you can’t even help a grade eight with her freakin home work
May 8th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Tarryn,
Sorry the site wasn’t particularly helpful with your homework, but really, I’m not that surprised. Unfortunately, the first time that Linguistics proper comes up for most people is college, and there’s not a whole lot of room for grammar description in a middle school class. Hope you found what you needed elsewhere.
Will
May 8th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Interesting post, Will. Tom, I don’t think what you’re describing is pluralization. I think it’s actually a generalization of the possessive you find in many fast food chains: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, TGIFriday’s, Bennigan’s and so on. Those names are usually shortened from something longer (eg. Bennigan’s Grill and Tavern) and have the whiff of down home cookin’ places–though of course the actual whiffs coming off such places are nothing of the sort.
May 11th, 2007 at 5:33 am
I think part of the reason why “SUV Vehicle” and “PC Computer Notes” are around is because the internet rewards redundancy.
Or, Google, more specifically.
When people search for SUV’s, they might search for “SUV” or just “Vehicle.”
So having both probably helps.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Don’t forget older redundancies, such as “PIN number” and “ATM machine”. As Samantha commented above, my take on this is that the acronyms just become lexicalized.
June 29th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I’ve been reading page upon page of your blog (in backwards-chronological order) since discovering it yesterday and I stumbled upon your own error:
“This is great FOSS software” (10 December 2006)
For the record, I think your theory of forgetting (or not consciously thinking about) what the acronym means is spot on. Like when people in churches or other organisations name their events “FCC Church Anniversary Dinner”, where “FCC” is Faith Christian Church, for example. The acronym becomes almost second-nature that people simply forget what the full organisation name is. Having said that, I do think it’s more probable to make the mistake if you can easily pronounce the acronym, e.g. “FOSS”, “PIN”.
June 29th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Very well done Tricia, that one never crossed my mind. Very nice catch. Want a sidebar link? I think that deserves recognition.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Haha, cheers for that. Unfortunately I have to decline the offer, as I am linkless.
July 9th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Using HDD as Hard Disk Drive is quite common, so ‘hd drive’ might have intended HD as Hard Disk.
Other than that I’m with you: one of my many pet peeves is use of self-evident tautologies [;-)].
By the way, at the risk of sounding like one of those crazy internet people: I’m really loving the blog…
July 14th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Sometimes, I believe, the acronym (or whatever) not only becomes lexicalized, but takes on its own life. Many people may never have heard the expansion. “ATM machine” is thus used to refer to the actual machine, while you can also have “ATM software” or “ATM locations” or “ATM receipt” as well the generic “ATM”.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:09 am
[…] (And just as a side note, if that phrase “for your FYI” really bothers you, you can read some thoughts on it here.) […]
March 4th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hi Will. Interesting site you have here.
As others have pointed out “ATM machine” and “PIN number” are the most common examples of what you’re discussing in this post. “SAM missile” is one the news folks like a lot.
One thing to note: if you’re going to muse on things linguistic, it seems that you should be held to a higher standard of English. You should know that subjects like “linguistics” (see your comment response above) aren’t capitalized because they’re not proper nouns. Also, “master’s degree” is not capitalized (and is possessive), but Master of Arts degree is capitalized (your “About the Author” section).
Please know that I’m not being picky here for the sake of pickiness. I like your site and a lot of your considerations of language, but I feel you will lose credibility in the eyes of other linguists if it’s clear that you are careless with common usage rules.
Anyway, keep up the good work! I’ll be back to read more.
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Eric,
You do raise valid points, and my capitalization is certainly unorthodox, if patterned at all. Perhaps I should pay more attention, but at the same time, capitalization errors are quite innocuous, so I have some trouble getting overly concerned.
Regardless, I appreciate your post (and should have thought of SAM Missile), and am glad you enjoy the site!
Will