While many given names have been abbreviated for conventional tonguespeak, these contractions are usually not optimal the textual communcation, arguably the prevalent mode of discourse in contemporary digital society. A printed word needs to be identifiable, but not necessarily pronounceable. This means that the internal vowels can be omitted while a couple of key consonants are left in place. Secondly, nicknames will no longer be required to start with an upper case letter, as that requires an extra keystroke. By convention, feminine names will be shortened to three letters, as they are more numerous and lengthier, while masculine names will be shortened to a pair of characters. (An 'o' may be appended to select Masculine names to indicate Mediterranean origin).
For example:
Paul -> pl; Paula -> pla;
Robert (-> Rob/Bob) -> rb; Roberta -> rba
Bartholomew (-> Bart) -> bl
Genevieve (-> Gen) -> gnv
Mohammad -> mm/ma/mu/mh/md
Obviously, there are a limited number of combinations to go around, but most of the common names will receive an abbreviation.-- Cuit_au_Four, Nov 01 2013 ok-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 01 2013 We would like this better if there were more numerics.-- 8th of 7, Nov 01 2013 As compensation for loss of non-ASCII-letter fidelity, you should let us use the full ASCII set.
tp-- the porpoise, Nov 01 2013 [-] rampant sexism-- pocmloc, Nov 01 2013 Brings to mind an idiosyncrasy of Halfbakery dialect that I run into occasionally: by this system my username would be shortened to [ao] or [AO], which it sometimes is. I never mention it, but there is another 'baker whose full handle is [AO], and at those times I wonder if the real [AO] feels at all offended by being unintentionally displaced by [The Alterother]. I even feel a little guilty about it, even though it's not me referring to myself as [AO], because in a way it's as if my very presence is robbing that person of a bit of their identity as a halfbaker, which is a rare and precious thing to posess.
This revelation does however present me with the opportunity to say "Will the real [AO] please stand up?" I don't know why, but I always enjoy saying that.-- Alterother, Nov 01 2013 So change your moniker to [The Alterother] and they can call you [TM]. It's your trademark. I don't care for the idea too much as it's just another acronymn-like way of writing.-- xandram, Nov 01 2013 I wasn't complaining so much as pontificating. Just sort of running at the keyboard, really.-- Alterother, Nov 01 2013 Dammit, [bigsleep], check the volume before you do that. :)
I used to be able to convert words to Soundex in my head. When I wanted to be annoying, I would call people by their Soundex indexes without explanation.
L620-- lurch, Nov 01 2013 <wonders if bigsleep likes his obvious nickname...>-- RayfordSteele, Nov 01 2013 random, halfbakery