Did you know?

I was on the train a few weeks ago when I overheard a conversation between a man and woman sitting opposite me. They were talking about the time they were meant to meet up with a friend for dinner. The lady confirmed the time as 6p.m to which the man nodded. Suddenly the lady said, “Do you know what, even though we always refer to the time in terms of a.m. and p.m., I don’t really know what they stand for!” Thoghtfully, the man said, “ I don’t know either.” “I know it,” I felt like blurting out! Here I was smiling inside and saying to myself, “I know it, I know it! If only you would ask me, I would have shared the meaning with you”. My days of studying Geography at school flooded my memory and the answer came straight to me. I never really liked Geography as a subject but on this particular occasion I felt happy that it indeed taught me something that one or two people might not know! Whilst most people are aware that a.m. stands for the hours from midnight and noon and p.m. from noon and midnight but some may not know what the abbreviations really stand for. a.m. is a Latin abbreviation for ante meridian which means before midday whilst p.m. is a Latin abbreviation for post meridiem which means after midday. Having reflected on this, I thought it might be useful to put together a short “Did you know” list of acronyms/abbreviations? Hope someone will find this helpful!

List of acronyms/abbreviations

BA/BSc

Bachelor of Arts/Science

EU

European union

BAME

Black African and minority ethnic

FY

Financial year

HE

Higher educaion

GPS

Global positioning system

IQ

Intelligent quotient

BC

Before Christ

BC

Blind copy (for emaliers)

CV

Curriculum Vitae

BMI

Body mass index

CEO

Chief executive officer

ATM

Automated teller machine

CCTV

Closed circuit television

DVD

Digital video disk

SCUBA

Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

CD- ROM

Compact Disk – Read Only Memory

CPU

Central Processing Unit

Chatting acronyms

IDK

I Don’t Know

IAE

In Any Event

AKA

Also Known As

BBL

Be Back Later

IMHO

In My Humble Opinion

FYA

For Your Amusement

CUL8R

See You Later

BFN

Bye For Now

CU

See You

HB

Hug Back

BTW

By The Way

FWIW

For What It’s Worth

GBU

God Bless You