AI for me used to be simply Artificial Intelligence — until a few years ago when a veterinarian friend ("Dr. Suz") pointed out that in her line of work it stands for Artificial Insemination. But recently "AI" appeared again, during discussions at a big meeting. Neither of the above translations made any sense, nor did anything else I could think of. Finally somebody (braver than I) asked, and the answer was given: AI now means Avian Influenza, aka "bird flu". Apparently I never got that memo!

(cf. IntelligenceAugmentation (25 Aug 2001), TooClever (5 Apr 2004), ...)

TopicLanguage - TopicScience - TopicHumor - TopicPersonalHistory - 2006-04-08

Comment 8 Apr 2006^ at 21:18 UTC

Problem with acronyms is you easily go from the usual 50% redundancy in a language to a state of factor-ten ambiguity. Signal-to-noise ratio plummets unless you are already locked into the subject jargon. – Bo

(correlates: IntelligenceAugmentation, PortmanteauWords, Deadly Feasts, ...)