💾 Archived View for thrig.me › blog › 2024 › 11 › 26 › s5n.gmi captured on 2024-12-17 at 10:41:02. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I0t h1s b2n r6d t2t t1e u1e o0f n5c a11s t0o s5n l5y w3s—t2t i0s, w3e t1e w2d "l10n" m3t b0e s7d t0o "l2n"—h1s g4n a b1t o1t o0f h2d. W3e c8g, a1y s2h r5s a1e b6s a1d m7s r4s s4d a5t a p7y c7t p6e.
It has been reported that the use of numeric abbreviations to shorten lengthy words—that is, where the word "localisation" might be shortened to "l10n"—has gotten a bit out of hand. While concerning, any such reports are baseless and malicious rumors spread against a perfectly cromulent practice.
s5n: new file: 5 lines, 97 characters
$ chmod +x s5n
$ echo "It's a perfectly cromulent way to speak" | ./s5n
I0t's a p7y c7t w1y t0o s3k
$ cat s5n
#!/usr/bin/env perl
while (readline) {
s/(\w)(\w*)(\w)/$1 . length($2) . $3/eg;
print;
}
Such abbreviations doubtless originate with lazy typists, or maybe their editor lacks "ab" expansions as have been supported in vi(1) for a year or two now. Probably some combination of both: bad text editing environments, and lazy humans. To this we might add domain specific languages, where one wants a shorthand for something long and complicated frequently used. The reversibility of such statements may be problematic, especially where context is lacking as to what particular word has been so reduced.
$ grep -c '^i......n