July 6th, 2024

Numeronymize

The article explores numeronyms like "a11y" and "c14n," introducing a Keyboard Maestro macro, Numeronymize, to create them easily. It uses a Perl command, emphasizing the -C switch for non-ASCII characters. Credit is given to Ian Brown and Anil Dash. Mentions Mastodon post terminology.

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Numeronymize

The post discusses the concept of numeronyms, which are abbreviations like "a11y" or "c14n" that represent longer words. The author created a Keyboard Maestro macro called Numeronymize to easily generate numeronyms in any editable text field. The macro works by selecting a word and shortening it to its numeronym using a Perl one-liner command. The author explains the importance of the -C switch in Perl to handle non-ASCII characters correctly. Additionally, the macro simulates selecting the word to the left of the cursor and manages the clipboard history to store temporary items. Credit is given to Ian Brown for the Emacs extension and Anil Dash for popularizing numeronyms. The post also touches on the use of "tweet" and "retweet" terminologies in reference to Mastodon posts. Overall, the author shares the process of creating the Numeronymize macro and its functionality for generating numeronyms efficiently.

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Link Icon 17 comments
By @timpark - 3 months
For fun, I wrote some Javascript that will numeronymize text, but it will also "de-numeronymize" it again by converting the result back into random words that also match. (if a match can't be found, it returns the original word, and unlike the article, it doesn't handle non-English characters) https://www.timpark.org/n10e-s2e-t2t/

Ex: "accessibility localization internationalization multilingualization globalization" becomes "a11y l10n i18n m17n g11n" becomes "applicability locomutation intercrystallization metaphenylenediamin gastrocnemian"

By @Feathercrown - 3 months
I dislike numeronyms. They may be shorter to type, but unlike acronyms, where the acronym itself is a valid pronounciation, numeronyms cannot usually be pronounced. The only way to know how is to know what the original word is, so you have to ask every time.
By @2shortplanks - 3 months
Fowler's Law on Unicode: There's always another bug, you just haven't found it yet.

Dr Drang's script counts the number of _characters_ not the number of _glyphs_. This matters because there's more than one way to represent é: Either just as unicode character \x{e9} ("NFC") or as a combination of "e" and the combining character that adds the accent ("NFD")

For example for "léon" this prints out "l3n" for me.

What you need to do is normalize to NFC.

> /usr/bin/perl -C -MUnicode::Normalize -pe '$_=NFC($_);s/(.)(.+)(.)/$1 . length($2) . $3/e'

By @berikv - 3 months
T3e is no b4r w1y to w3e t2t w2h l2g w3s t2n to n10e t2m e8e!

> perl -C -pe 's/(\w)(\w+)(\w)/$1 . length($2) . $3/ge'

Or for the less o4e among us, this v5n will only n10e words with l4h six and up:

> perl -C -pe 's/(\w)(\w\w\w\w+)(\w)/$1 . length($2) . $3/ge'

F3l v5n:

perl -C -pe 's/(\p{L})(\p{L}*)(\p{L})/$1@{[length($2)]}$3/g'

N12g w5t i18n w3d n1t b0e c6e, t2s t2s a u1f-8 c8e v5n. I c2l i0t I16r-v1.0

새0로 오0신 모0든 분1께 인3고 싶2다.

By @fifticon - 3 months
I misinterpreted this first as hacker/leet-speak, so that those words would be ALLY and CLAN..
By @KaiserPro - 3 months
I'm loving the perl one liners. I fear its a dying art!

Tangent:

I worked at a large financial news site for a number of years.

One of our best engineers spun up an "a11y" sub team. As it was quite involved and they went team to team doing things, I assume it was some sort of dev tool initiative.

It was only after I left and I was describing it as the "ally" team that I was told what it meant.

Its like "banal" its only when you say it out load amongst (hopefully) friends do you realise that you've not got it quite right....

By @OscarCunningham - 3 months
I-1i think this i0s funnier t0o apply t0o short words. Also t1e word 'a4d' i0s pronounced like i1's written.
By @jl6 - 3 months
Ambiguously rude numeronyms can make you look like a big s2t.
By @wcrossbow - 3 months
Today I learned something new, but I found it very ironic that after looking up a11y, the first example, discovered it meant accessibility.

edit: I do realize that I might be missing the joke entirely

By @ajuc - 3 months
Spelling accessability as a11y is the pinnacle of irony.
By @lxe - 3 months
Thought it was a typo. It's not:

https://mastodon.hccp.org/@igb/112734767519719978

> e14n -> "Andreesen Horowitz" is not a typo, it is a bit of an easter egg/joke (Sorry, I can't help myself.):

> "e14n" has recently shown up in social meda as shorthand for @pluralistic's "enshittification" coinage. Andreesen Horowitz often refers to themselves using a numeronym: "a16z".

By @smartmic - 3 months
Perl and its powerful oneliners deserve the credit for this exercise.
By @ThrowawayTestr - 3 months
Is this 1337 speak for the modern world?
By @627467 - 3 months
for whatever reason I always thought a11y was ally. but, is c14n c(i)yan? and, what is l18n?
By @perks_12 - 3 months
this will come in handy once I start my vc fund.
By @magicalhippo - 3 months
I guess this is the modern variant of l33t[1].

[1]: https://megatokyo.com/strip/9