Abbreviations don’t strictly have to follow any specific logic, they just need to be understood. What you’re describing is an initialism, where you just take the first letters.
My best guess for pfp is that it’s an initialism of the first three syllables because the fourth is unintuitive, three letters was common enough back in the day of BBS and pfp was recognisable enough, while pp is fairly ambiguous. Someone started abbreviating it like this, people picked up on it, and by the time I was old enough to engage with English message boards it was the norm already.
ProFile Picture
Profile Picture. PP.
That would be the initialism, yes, but pfp isn’t an initialism.
Then what is it??? Wouldn’t it be an acronym???
That, or just a general abbreviation. If doesn’t have to be a specific form of abbreviation.
Radar (Radio Detection And Ranging) also isn’t a strict initialism, or it would be called RDAR.
Phrases like etc. (et cetera), & co. (company), vs. (versus), are also generally abbreviations.
Pfp makes no sense though. Why does profile get two letters if it’s the same length as picture? Just say an actual word or call it pp.
ProFile Pic
PFP
It’s just the first letters *of the syllables of the shortened saying.
Actually.
Abbreviations don’t strictly have to follow any specific logic, they just need to be understood. What you’re describing is an initialism, where you just take the first letters.
My best guess for pfp is that it’s an initialism of the first three syllables because the fourth is unintuitive, three letters was common enough back in the day of BBS and pfp was recognisable enough, while pp is fairly ambiguous. Someone started abbreviating it like this, people picked up on it, and by the time I was old enough to engage with English message boards it was the norm already.