Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt01655)

>>It has also been something that has turned off potential members.

> I'm afraid such an argument does not find much sympathy with me. I
> can't think of a single profession, craft, science, philosophy or
> religion that has not developed a jargon and acronyms.
If you're in a group where 100% of the people have the required 
knowledge of that profession's acronyms, then I agree, it should not matter.

But whenever you're in an industry that has people who have not yet 
memorized the acronyms, the veterans in that group spell out what they mean.

I remember going to Adult Education seminars when I was a newbie, and 
the veterans leading the discussions used the full names when they told 
us what we needed to know.

Later, when I was on the other side of the fence, I also used the full 
descriptors when I was speaking to groups that included newbies.

The difference here is that we're talking by typewriter-equivalents, 
where we tend to abbreviate. Just like the veteran lecturer two 
paragraphs above might have used abbreviations in his lecture notes, we 
use abbreviations in our typewriting. But the difference is that, when 
the lecturer came to the abbreviation in his lecture outline, he said 
the full name, not the acronym.

But just like the argument between the "Read only this set of materials" 
camp and the "Read only that set of materials" camp, we're never going 
to have agreement on this issue. Some people will continue to always use 
acronyms, some people will have consideration for the newbies in this 
group, and some people will try to remember to spell out the acronyms 
but will often forget.

Unfortunately, I'll probably be in the third group and occasionally forget.

But I still feel that we should spell out the meaning of an acronym the 
first time we use it in a reply, then for the rest of that reply, we can 
use the acronym. This is probably what your local newspaper does, even 
when they are using acronyms that they expect everyone in your 
readership area to know. Just ask the editor-in-chief what their 
policies are about acronyms sometimes. You might be surprised.
--
John, webmaster
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