More readers sound off:
Regarding your posts on sticks and stones, and the difficulty of pronouncing LGBT, I suggest LUGBUT. Works for men, women, and transexuals. And it has a plural: LUGBUTS.
Another variety:
I’m sort of fond of the name my wife’s college pro-tolerance came up for themselves: The Giblets (from GBLT, because why not). OK, I’m not fond of it, but at least it rolls off the tongue, and it sounds potentially lewd besides, which is a plus.
Another adds, “I prefer GQ BLT – it sounds like a delicious designer sandwich, which is incredibly meta.” A more serious take from our Facebook page:
Homosexual has an important place in our lexicon; I frequently use it to describe people who have sex with (mostly) men, but do not identify a gay. Gay implies homosexual orientation with self-acceptance. I’m gay, but Ted Haggard is homosexual.
A fussbudget notes:
Your reader speaks imprecisely and you reinforce the imprecision. “LGBT” is not an acronym; it is an initialism. An initialism is a word made up of the first letters (usually) of other words, like an acronym, but unlike an acronym, not pronounced as a word itself. RADAR, SCUBA, NATO and SNAFU are acronyms. CIA, LGBTQIA and USA are initialisms. There are many explanations out there – here’s one. The several print dictionaries I have lying around my university library office do not make the distinction, but it is important to those of us who were toilet trained by the age of one and who like things just so. Picky-picky.
Update from a pickier reader:
Excuse me for out fussbudgeting the fussbudget, but radar, scuba, and snafu are no longer acronyms. Dictionaries now define them as nouns. They have morphed from acronyms into words over the years. That’s why they are no longer spelled in all caps. Your reader is correct that NATO is an acronym. NASA, NAFTA, UNICEF, POTUS, TARP, and OPEC are also acronyms. They are written in all caps and pronounced as if a word.
The Dish 