Doug

I have a general issue with misreading things as being funnier, weirder, or ruder than they actually are. Or even all three.


I also spend a fair bit of time online, and you get a lot of fucking around on the Internet. You know, RTFM, TFA, WTF, FFS. All that stuff.

I also like the cross-stitch wtih "Behold the field in which I grow my fucks; lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren".

So of course I see it everywhere, including places it isn't.

One particularly bad one started off a few years back when there was a rearrangement of science funding and all the eye-wateringly expensive multi-year massive-collaboration hard-science stuff (think of big particle physics kit, and the UK's contribution to CERN and the European Space Agency (Hello Tim!)) was brought together in one place: the Science and Technology Facilities Council, or STFC. Which, despite my brain's efforts to pattern-match, is nothing to do with STFU.

But the very worst is to do with the kids' school, and the organisation that aims to facilitate parental contributions to school life. In most schools this is the Parent-Teacher Association, or PTA. Not here. They want to emphasise that other people can also have a positive role to play, so have added Friends to the name.

So I have to work hard to avoid sniggering (or, worse, wincing) every time I am invited to events organised by the PTFA.

Edit: Forgot that the Italian name for the Swiss Federal Railways is Ferrovie federali svizzere, or FFS, which amused me when in Lugano.