Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 April 24

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April 24

Certain action makes the text frozen and uneditable in a MS Word document.

Moved to the Computing section of the desk. --Lambiam 06:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

U.S. abbreviations

Hi. Why is US Mission to the UN abbreviated as USUN, Mission to ASEAN USASEAN, and USEU and USAU? Where are the Ms? Thank you. Imagine Reason (talk) 11:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Concision (also called "conciseness", "succinctness", "brevity", or "laconicism") is a communication principle of eliminating redundancy. Alansplodge (talk) 12:07, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

During WW2, the U.S. Navy was notorious for having an extremely elaborate (and inconsistent) system of abbrevations ("CinCPac" for Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Fleet was only the beginning). You can read some of them here... -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

The Russians have to be different, and delight in oxymoronically long abbreviations. The record-breaker, according to Guinness, is:

• NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT (Russian: Нииомтплабопармбетжелбетрабсбомонимонконотдтехстромонт).

Methinks this "abbreviation" (which refers to The Laboratory for Reinforcement, Concrete and Ferroconcrete Operations, for Composite-monolithic and Monolithic Constructions, of the Department of the Technology of Building-Assembly Operations, of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for Mechanization and Technical Aid) needs its own abbreviation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

We Shall Overcome

Was the Lucille Simmons who sang We Shall Overcome in the 1945–1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike related to Lucille Whipper, née Simmons, who was the first Black woman to represent a Charleston County seat in the South Carolina legislature? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 22:15, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Or at least this forward to a book about the song refers to Lucille Simmons Whipper (1928-2021) and the cigar strike. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 22:56, 24 April 2023 (UTC)