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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33288 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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TPOASITDWID

This was really confusing at first. I figured it out eventually but it's a really bad idea to use a uncommon acronym without defining it the first time.

Even Google was no help because the two extra letters you added in the middle were just enough to make this thread literally the ONLY Google hit for this as it was typed, as opposed to as it was intended.

So what you’re saying is that the purpose of the acronym was to be ungoogleable?

I think he didn't bother defining because it has been the subject of a recent Scott post, and featured in a post on the Motte 2 weeks ago.

Without the typo it was. The extra two letters were just enough to throw me off.

The better known acronym is POSIWID.

Would you like to share your note with the class?

The Purpose Of A System Is To Do What It Does

Except this is literally the first time I've heard anyone include the "to do", and the extra two letters were just enough to make it look weird and unfamiliar even though I thoroughly lurked the recent discussions of it.

So is POASIWID the correct version?

To be fair to myself, I did capitalize the whole phrase that I later shortened.

"POSIWID" is the canonical acronym.

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