BFF and the Change from Civilian to Army Acronyms

When I joined the Army in 2007, social media was spreading across the world.  Like every subculture, it began to have its own language and its own acronyms.  At that time I was starting to text more, especially with my then teenage kids.  So I began to be exposed to the flood of new texting acronyms.

At the same time, I was re-entering Army culture after a quarter century.  The Army has thousands of official and unofficial acronyms with few rules.  One of those rules says that if a three-letter acronym has the letter F in the middle the F is always the same word.  So BFR means Big F**king Rock.  NFW means No effing Way, and so on.

One day shortly after my re-enlistment my daughter Lisa burst into the house after soccer practice.  She was dropping her gear and going to Claire's for dinner.  She referred to Claire as her BFF.  I wasn't paying full attention to the blond blur that was passing through the house until I heard BFF.  I understood that Lisa was saying Claire is her best friend (still is as a matter of fact), but I was surprised she would refer to Claire as her Best effing Friend.

I said, "Lisa, when you say BFF, I get that Claire is your best friend, but is it like the Army acronym?"

The blond blur stopped.  She looked at me, smiled when she realized what I was asking and said, "Dad, it's Best Friends Forever! It's not Army."

Glad we cleared that up.  Not that it was a BFD.