When

• Gun shot wound = 3 syllables, and
• GSW = 5 syllables

We abbreviate to shorten, not lengthen.

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[–] 48 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Just pulling this out of my ass, but perhaps it's an artifact from handwritten medical charts. GSW is shorter to write.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    it's faster typed out as well. When I worked call centres, we'd shorthand all of our notes because we had 15-30 seconds to wrap up the final notes after the call ended, not to mention no agent wants to read a novel to get up to speed.

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