For some reason I'd always been under the impression that the 'F' in 'TFA' was a different word. This makes so many exchanges less hostile in retrospect. Oops.
This, right here, is why I never use acronyms with the sixth letter of the English alphabet anywhere in them. Heck, as you might already have noticed, I don’t use said letter at all, unless it is part of a word.
This is one “human corner case” I have no shame working around. Wouldn’t want to convey hostility where none exists.
The F-word (I'll spare your virgin eyes), or even the letter F, is not capable of conveying hostility on it's own, so there is no sense in omitting it.
The acronym was coined with the non "fine" meaning for that letter. It was much later that internet culture got more polite and people retroactively replaced the meaning on RTFM and RTFA.
I'm almost certain what you're thinking is the original usage. TFA (disparaging, implying the person you are responding hasn't read it) was co-opted as TFA (neutral)
