Don't you hate it when people use abbreviations?

Only when I do not understand them, or, worse, when they have more than one possible meaning. But it is rather late to complain. The idea was first taken up and spread by the ancient Romans. One of their commonest was SPQR (Senatus populus-que romanus), the official name of the Roman state, rather like USA, UK or BRD, which must have saved them quite a lot of space and effort on official documents and banners!