Slashdot Mirror
Geekspeak Baffles Web Users
An anonymous reader writes to mention a BBC article on the technology buying public's continued frustration with 'geek speak'. Despite ever-increasing adoption of high tech gadgets in first-world nations, the terms used to describe what these new toys do often elude the people who buy them. From the article: "Acronyms in particular foxed users. 75% of online Britons did not know that VOD stands for video-on-demand, while 68% were unaware that personal video recorders were more commonly referred to as PVRs. Millions of people keep in touch via instant messaging but some 57% of online Brits said they did not know that the acronym for it was IM. 'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster. "
first fp...cool.
pepople cant memorize computer industry acronyms
The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms
:)
I'd give that distinction to the government and/or military
WTF NUBS?! RTFM!
DMUANUY
Don't Make Up Acronyms - Nobody Understands You
Sadly, the term, "slashdotted," didn't even make the initial poll,... Or maybe it did, and that poll was slashdotted, so nobody responded,... ;-)
Despite ever-increasing adoption of high tech gadgets in first-world nations, the terms used to describe what these new toys do often allude the people who buy them.
I don't usually like to complain about grammar and spelling in article summaries, but come on. Even of you'd used the word you meant, it'd still have been the wrong word.
Jurisprudence Fetishist Gets Off On A Technicality --theonion.com
Think of how confusing "IANAL" must be to them.
the terms used to describe what these new toys do often allude the people who buy them
No wonder they're baffled when the geeks try to speak English but don't know English.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
I thought a lot of guys were hitting on me - PDA == Public Display of Affection.
Yes, we love our TLAs (thats "Three Letter Acronyms" for you noobs)
My parents get the idea of Memory (RAM, or to save those who don't know this acronym: Random Access Memory) for a computer crossed with "memory" (HDD or Hard Disk Drive). I tell my mother "you need more memory" and she instantly freaks out with "I HAVE TO UPGRAD ETHE HARD DRIVE AGAIN?!" No, mom. I still love her.
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
There are already too many n00bs who own a computer and are connected to the internet. Perhaps what is rather needed is not us changing for them but a "geek test" where in order to qualify for internet access you must pass a series of tests/exams like you do in order to get a radio license.
Until this time, the internet will continue to be littered with crap to entertain the vast majority of people who should not be connected.
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
I am going to have to disagree with this article on the fact that the computer industry is the most guilty of acronym overuse. Has anyone ever tried to understand someone in the military..yeah you know what I am talking about, those guys use more acronyms then the english language has words.
With all my L33T knowledge I still trying to figure out what the GIRL acronym means. Oh well back to WoW.
I didn't RTFA, but WTF? FYI IANAL, but AFAIK this is slander, AKA lies. I'd sue FTW ASAP. J/K, LOL.
Who doesn't watch video "on demand"? Except for marketing meetings I need to go to for every second Thursday, I only ever watch video "on demand" (I guess thats "on demand" too, by demand of my boss). And all non-industrial video recording devices are "personal". "Hey, roommate, come here. Insert keys .... now ..... Turn in 3 ... 2 ... 1 .. turn! {recording}" Ya, right, thats playing out in millions of homes everywhere.
Yes, I am bitter and constantly annoyed at/about people who insist on putting some stupid and redundent sylable in front of "mail" all the time.
It's domain-specific knowledge, and the domain changes on a weekly basis. I'll bet half the non-technical users who didn't grok the TLAs in the TFA would have no problems instantly recognizing "Bennifer" and "TomKat" or whoever the cute-celeb-name-du-jour is on the entertainment news.
Jargon comes from domain-specific knowledge. Language evolves to accomodate new technological and social developments. And the world's a better place when everyone is willing to play along.
So STFU n00b, and when the microcontroller responsible for integrating temperature over time tells you to do so, gimme my 4x4 with a side of animal-style fries. Because that's what I call enjoyin' the ol' in-n-out.
As technology gets more advanced, less understanding of it is required to be able to use it. My mom doesn't know how to change the oil in her car, but she can still drive it.
Do people really need to know that RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or what PCMCIA stands for, as long as they know that the PCMCIA card goes in the PCMCIA slot? A lot of acronyms seem to have more meaning attached to them the simply what the letters stand for. What I am trying to say is that the meaning of the acronyms seems more important then what they stand for.
Think for yourself. Question Authority.
and they are bad when overused. Its not a problem with geekspeak. There are often times when I am frustrated with people's overuse of acronyms, especially in non-computer environments. So don't blame us.
...STFU. j/k, ttyl
The industry is soon going to make people fully aware of the importance of acronyms in the tech products they use. The lesson will start with 'DRM'...
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Seriously, who cares what the acronyms stand for, they generally stand on their own. What percentage of IRC users know what IRC stands for? Does that stop them from using and enjoying IRC or even http for that matter?
Besides all the embarrasment they cause for the 3 people who actually worry about acronyms causing confusion, what would the solution be anyway? NOT using them?
Hey dude, I will catch you on Internet Relay Chat later. Or we can Instant Message.
This sig is licensed under the Free Sig Foundation License, you may re-distribute it as long as you retain this notice
GSF or Geek-Speak Frustration occurs when non-techicals are confronted with too many acronyms.
but so is mine and most everyone else in the world. I almost wish we could rename RAM to something else. I deal with your "average user" pretty regularly, some of them have even grown up with computers and have been using them for years. You say "oh, it looks like you don't have enough memory to run that program" and instantly it's "crap, does that mean I need to delete some mp3s?". I used to be very good natured about this but now it drives me batshit insane. I really believe you can just make shit up about computers and people will believe it - "your flux capacitor is out of alignment" - that kind of shit.
The sad fact of working in IT is that the common idiocy of humanity gets rubbed in your face nearly every single day.
Try having a coversation with someone about personal video recorders or digital rights management without using acronyms. Anyone that owns a PVR knows what one is, and anyone thats shopping for one is bound to find out in a hurry, so why be frustrated by it.
Elude: to avoid or escape; to escape the understanding of: The correct spelling eluded the editor.
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
U bet they n3v3r b3 31337 h@x0rs!
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
I hate it when people try to sound smart by trying to say what the Acronym stands for, even worse when they get it wrong. Today I was talking about ROM chips in a controller. He said. "Yea, Random Orbital Memory..." It was all I could do to stop from LMAO. n00bs.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
Is it me or is this article full of FUD?
Wait...Brits who don't understand tech acronyms are getting hit with foxes?!? Is this some strange backlash against the hunt ban? I am so confused....
'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster.
I hear his friends call him "B-dog".
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
IM VOD PVR't
What else can be said unintentionally with such acronymns strung together.
In other news, the sky is blue, the earth is round and objects fall down!
Of course a large percentage of folks who don't use a particular technology don't know the acronyms used to refer to that technology. I'm sure back in the 40s, 70% of the population didn't know that TV was an acronym for television. For that matter, I bet 20 years ago (early days of the Personal Computer), 70% of the population didn't know what PC meant either.
Good job slashdot! If this were fark, the article would get the 'obvious' tag, and the submitter would be deserving of the 'dumbass' tag.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Give Back The Whales?
I didn't know a lot of the stuff that they put on here before I started coming on /. because in England people don't use IM to talk about it, people would usually say in full or say "messenger" (some people even use "msn" like a brand name for the whole lot - I think AIM is more common in the US)... so the poll seems a bit strange. People just have names that they know things by that they and their friends would use. Besides that, I've never met someone with a PVR anyway, I think the poll seems very American on British audiences it doesn't seem that amazing.
Other than that; "OMG!!!!11! teh l33t pwnd teh n00bs!!!one11!"
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
It's a great program I have on my Linux box:
http://www.gentoo-portage.com/games-misc/wtf
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
The education field is much the worst, IMHO and IME.
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. -- Sir Winston Churchill
I'm kind of surprised how much of these terms I didn't know. I'd never thought to check what "RSS" stood for, for example, or referred to a personal video recorder as anything but. Come to think of it, I don't even know what "VHS" stands for. It's quite humbling.
The jargon was a different story, though.
/. (and i just made another one: FLF - Friggin' Lameness Filter)
PVR/DVR is pretty common, but as long as they knew what a "digital video recorder" was, then thats a pass. Not everyone perfers to use shortforms in place of words. IM is stupid and always has been. People should say "icq" instead. Like kleenex or coke.
Man, I see RSS everywhere and *I* didnt even know what it stood for. I mean come on, if you use something, and refer to it as "feeds" or something else, and people know what you mean and you can communicate, then why all the need for correctness?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
In the beginning, the devices don't have common terms for them. Then perhaps a simple description is turned into an acronym. After time a set of words becomes a proper name for the device. Before the final step all you have is the acronym or its equivalent; there is nothing short and precise, just short and vague or long and precise. VOD refers to something particular. It's not just "video over the tubes".
Anyone who finds acronyms confusing, soon learns what they stand for if they have the need to. I'm sure there are acronyms, and other jargon, that would totally confuse me. But the great thing is, I don't care. I have no need to know them. At the same time, if I want to rant about RIAA DRM it's a hell of a lot easier than writing the Recording Industry Assosciation of America's Digital Rights Management.
Possibly iLude?
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
"Come son of Jor-el, kneel before VOD!!"
Oh, what, that was Zod.
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
GeekSpeak is hard to understand if you don't know the physical objects being named. RAM didn't exist 300 years ago, so there isn't a word for it in any language from that time. HDDs, FDD, same problem. It's not a problem with geeks, but with the newness of technology. Give it 300 years, it'll fix itself.
I don't know a carburetor from a fuel-pump, but I don't complain that mechanics are conspiring to keep me from driving.
Changa hates change.
As a Brit IT guy tell me something I don't know. Or N.T.S.H.M.A.
or,
Try asking a Mac user for his MAC address. Can get very tricky. That's the cruelest TLA of all.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
May I recommend Peter Rukavina's new site 3LA.ca where he explains three-letter acronyms via audcast, in plain English.
Where an acronym itself becomes a single letter in another acronym.
The worst offender that comes to mind right now? M$ "NetBEUI", with the B for BIOS crammed in there.
I know it's not nice to make unfavorable generalizations, but as a Californian who has worked in Europe, it has to be said: the British are definitely technophobic. The Germans and the Czechs are pretty good, like those of us in the Silicon Valley, they love technology, are eager to learn, and respect those with tech. knowledge. Not so the Brits. I think it's part of their class-conscious society, wherein technical skill is a sign that one is not part of the ruling class. Or something like that.
A lot of Brits seem astonished by the idea that one should change engine oil in cars, by the way. They just shrug when cars lose their engines, seeming to regard it as normal.
There will always be a percentage of the population that just doesn't understand. When you don't understand a medical term, you can google it. When you don't understand a "geek" term, you can still google it. Unless you've been living under a rock and don't know what the verb "to google" implies.
Just imagine... in the past, not understanding a medical term meant you had to get up and go to the library and find the medical dictionary in the reference section and look up what you wanted to know. It was a hassle. These days you don't even have to get off your couch to use Google, there is no hassle, it's a question of being too lazy or stupid.
The difference is, in our culture it's totally acceptable to say "I don't know what that newfangled thing is." and your ignorance is commiserated with instead of deprecated. We celebrate laziness and idiocy instead of telling them to "look it up, google it, it's even in the dictionary!".
I think the bigger problem is not so much the explosion of terminology, but that we celebrate such mediocrity.
My mother also raised two children practically by herself while my father was in the military, knows 4, that's right, 4 foreign languages fluently, fought through cancer, and always made sure her family was fed and clothed and sheltered. I don't think she's stupid, I just think she's committed her life to having to remember and know certain things, that she doesn't have time or regularly access the technology world is not a fault. Perhaps it's her best trait.
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
Ah the good old days before acronyms. When technological marvels were given simple, straightforward names like sonar, laser and scuba....oh wait....
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
... don't use a term, then isn't that term LESS commonly used?
And what percentage of people have a video recorder that isn't personal?
And why isn't a DVD recorder a PDVDR? Or a PDR?
Hard-drives are cheap anyway. They come in packs of ten and have a cute little box to keep them safe. Also: stickers!
Every time I hear one of those flashy RAF boys use the ancronym ASRAAM (The AIM-132 Anvanced Short Range Air to Air Missile) it always cracks me up since the way they pronounce it usually makes it sound a lot more like a method of copulation not uncommonly seen raunchy porn movies than a ancronym for a missile system.
Conversation during an interview for a contract IT position a few years ago:
Them: What is your experience with SDLC?
Me: Well, I can't say I've used it in a long time. You didn't mention that this project involved mainframe networking.
Them: Mainframe networking? It doesn't. SDLC is "Software Development Life Cycle".
Me: Oh, sorry. To me it means "Synchronous Data Link Control". It's an IBM acronym that's been around forever.
Developers of message board software could define macros like [IANAL] (better yet, let the message board admins define them), and let the software convert it to IANAL. It will show up as IANAL with a funny underline in the web browser, but when you hover your mouse over it, the abbreviation will be spelled out. (I would demonstrate it, but apparently Slashcode doesn't trust this particular markup.)
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
STFU u NOOB n1gg3rs!1!
TDM TLA!
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
kthx
It is bad enough to have a plethora of acronyms, there are names of things that look like acronyms (JAVA, UNIX), acronyms that have multiple meanings (DBM, GPS), acronyms that have other meanings when used as words (AMPS, BIT). One unusual acronym is 'PA' which can mean Power Amp, Public Address, Prince Albert, Pennsylvania, Panama, Physician's Assistant, Power of Attorney, Press Agent, Production Assistant, and probably more.
I know of at least a couple of non-techie writers whose disdain for the tech industry went up a few notches after not only finding out that all-caps TWAIN was not an acronym, but also that some jokers made up the backronym "Technology Without An Interesting Name" in response to everyone who expects a series of capital letters to be an acronym.
I think you were actually alluding to the word 'elude'.
Acronyms are everywhere. My Civic comes with ABS, BA, EBD, SRS, AC, and many other acronyms. America's Funniest Home Videos was renamed AFHV and you have shows like CSI which always had an acronym for a title.
I've been using computers for years and still don't know what QWERTY stands for. And isn't it a freaky coincidence that those 5 letters are all right next to eachother on the keyboard?
Honestly, it's not an excessive fondness for acronyms, but the tendency for the actual names to be confusing. So these people don't know what HTML means, or RAM. So what? Would 'Hyper Text Markup Language' make more sense to a non-geek? If you tell someone they should have more Random Access Memory, would they understand it any better? I would guess 'no'. All it would do would be to waste that extra second or two, every single time you want to say 'RAM'. Over the years... that could mean a major difference in the speed of technological development. -note to self: put funny or sarcastic closing comment here BEFORE clicking submit! DON'T FORGET!!
You live and learn. At least, you live.
An actual sighting of STFU in the wild.
"Possibly iLude?"
Hmm... sounds like a prescription tranquellizer illegally sold to users of trendy portable music devices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaalude
It's not like we come up with acronyms and abbreviations and new words for things because we're snobbish, we do it because we are inventing new things and have to call them something. Contrast this with the military, which renames ordinary things that have perfectly good names already...it's not a bathroom, it's a "latrine;" it's not a wall, it's a "bulkhead."
What else would you call a device that records television and other video programs digitally using an internal hard drive, and can be personalized to record only what you want? What's the clever name for that that's somehow better than 'PVR?' Should we refer to things in terms of other devices that we already know? Maybe we should call it a "Hard-Drive Digital VCR"...yeah, that's it! Well, of course, there's no casette, so that C is sort of out of place...
What else would you call a service by which you can send text messages to a specific person instantly? Maybe something like "instant messaging?" Oh wait, apparently that's snobbish.
I'm a government employee. My whole world is acronyms, command names, etc. Et-see indeed.
That's not it. Those acroymns in the quote are uncommon. DVR is more common than PVR and in actual discourse most people call all PVR's and DVR's "Tivo's," much like everyone is calling every mp3 player an "iPod" now, even if it isn't one. VOD is also widely unused. People just say "Video On Demand," or "On Demand."
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Sorry, i had to say it.
"Your Curiosity Just Cost You A Quarter For The Juke Box" is what the bar maid says when you ask her what that big sign over the bar means. That was back when a pitcher of beer was a buck and everyone knew what a juke box was.
1011 1010 1101 1100 0000 1111 1111 1110 1110
Some people trying for a DOD contract took the ETLA and made it Joint, resulting in a JETLA.
Inflation came along, and we needed to manage JETLAs via a Group key.
Feelings of JETLAG came as no surprise.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
if they are too stupid to understand computers. why should we change to accomodate their ignorance?
BFD. The acronyms used as examples in the summary are idiotic. I live on the interweb, I work in a digital post-production facility, my home is filled with the latest early-apdopting fool equipment, but I'll be fucked if I EVER hear anyone use "VOD" or "PVR". These are top-down commercially inspired acronyms, not exactly nerdspeak. I guarantee you both were coined by marketing executives.
SQJQA - Stop Quoting John Quincy Adams
np
The military likes acronyms and abbreviations more than IT.
Excuse me sir. Seeing how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT? Cause if it leaks to the VC, he could end up an MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP.
OTOH = On The Other Hand
D&C = Dilation and Curettage (gynaecological procedure)
FAQ = Frequently Asked Question(s)
P&L = Profit & Loss statement
It's not exactly rocket surgery.
I believe that most of these inane acronyms are actually spun up by marketing/product management droids and not by the people who actually create the products.
TMTOOHRITMA - Too Much Time On One's Hands Results In Too Many Acronyms.
Our team at work is called the EFTPOS team: Every Fucking Thing Plus Other Shit
Do you have any idea how confusing that acronym can be when half your friends/family are nurses or in the health care profession, and the other half are geeks?
1-slashdot@sapm.org (don't mind me, i'm just trying to trap spam)
Trying to recall what three letter abbreviations actually mean feels like having a person trying to interrupt while you are reading. The acronym interrupts my train of thought and makes understanding the rest of the information before and after the abbreviation take longer than it should.
Charles Angelich
'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster. "
Mr. Burmaster has never been around the US military much, which puts the whole geek community to shame in terms of sheer number of acronyms. The Air Force, in particular, doesn't have names for anything, they have acronyms instead. Forms and equipment almost never have names either, but are rather referred to by whatever series of numbers and/or letters were assigned to thems.
"At my PDS, I changed into my 36-2903-compliant BDUs, slipped on my BCGs, and dropped off my DA 31 at the 58 SOW MPF. When I got back to the MXS, I then R^2'ed a IDAS/MATT LRU on an MH-53J, filled out a DD 1577-2 on it and took the POS to the backshop.
I really meant that about the forms, btw. Ask for a form by name and you get that deer-in-the-headlights look from everyone. Probably like that in every government job.
From the Jargon File:
In 1989, a random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin "What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in the 90s?" Paul's straight-faced response: "There are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms."
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I understand their frustration, but since we don't want to say "Personal video recorder", we need a shorter name. I wish we could just say "MythTV", but PVR seems a reasonable compromise -- and in any case, no one has any idea what these mean, either.
What bugs me is that most users, when they get sick of acronyms, end up either inventing new words, misusing existing words, or using the names of specific products. It's at the point now where most people don't know what a web browser is. I say, "Like Internet Explorer," and they go "Oh! I get it!" I suppose that's better than the people who aren't aware of Internet Explorer, only the big Windows XP button that says "Internet".
My father now thinks "VPN" means "remote desktop", because he uses a VPN to secure his remote desktop connection. Most teens don't seem to be aware of "IM", only AOL, MSN, or Yahoo, making it sometimes annoying to explain Google Talk, but (of course) they grasp the concept of iChat instantly.
So, while acronyms aren't helping, I think users are always going to be confused, and tech moves too fast to always be inventing creative names -- and when we do have good names, people complain about how open source projects have such weird names. Well, hey, at least you can pronounce them -- that's better than you can say for most acronyms. I think some go out of their way to be obnoxious -- thttpd, lighttpd...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Two sources for acronyms in 'geek speak'
1. The need to feel special -- explaining the reason why geeks can't get laid (b/c it's clearly not the polos, the cheap jeans, the bad sneakers, the random shit attached @ the belt, and the utter lack of confidence).
2. Military background for almost all major modern computer technologies (VR - military training, Databases - CIA, Internet - DARPA/BBNT, etc.)
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Brits don't understand acronyms?
Just intersperse a generous amount of "u"s. They seems to like that.
For example: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ is very hard to understand:
Acronyms Brits Can't Deduce Even Fine Good Heads I Just Know Look Meek Now Or Pretty Quick Rationals Slow To Understand Very Widely X Yesterday's Zeitgeist
However, X marks the spot where an Xtra "U" could go:
Acronyms Brits Can't Deduce Even Fine Good Heads I Just Know Look Meek Now Or Pretty Quick Rationals Slow To Understand Very Widely Used Yesterday's Zeitgeist
See?
Have you read my journal today?
Someone has got to stop the mechanics. They are FAR worse than computer people with their mumbo jumbo. I've spent tons of money on my car over the years and had O2 sensors replaced, manifolds cracked, bearings worn, compressors fail, clutches wear out, framistats out of alignment, interociters fail, and who knows what else. WTF is all of this stuff? Why should I have to know all of the technical stuff just to drive a car? And they LOVE to use these big words to demonstrate their superior mechanical ability and make us mere mortals feel stupid. Lots more people have cars than computers and we all have to take them in for one thing or another every few months. Well I for one have HAD IT! Next time my mechanic uses these big words on me I am going to insist he speak in normal english or I will refuse to pay! If he can't explain it he must be cheating me.
People that use thesauri ought be quiet about it. It's admitting one isn't widely enough read to say what one wants without artifice.
I'm tired of having to apologize and bow and scrape and kiss and lick ass just because I've picked up a book and done one thing or two to improve myself in my lifetime. Anybody wants to use my technology can learn my acronyms, and FUCK YOU if you don't like it. These dolts are lucky we share with them at all. Let's just stop selling tech to them and use it to enslave them like stock animals, since they're obviously dying to be treated that way anyway.
Take away my techie creds if you must, but I had no idea before reading this summary what "VOD" or "PVR" stood for. And when did "video camera" stop being acceptable anyhow?
Property is theft.
Is it some development because of all those new fancy IT technologies popping out everywhere whose names - or better descriptions - most people can remember even worse than the acronym?
;))? I mean, normally the CG types quite a lot, and so tries to save time and energy by leaving away most of the vowels and some consonants. Furthermore, CGs also tend to spice up life by not just code everything straightforward, but use some fancy personal obfuscator mode (FPOM) to personalize code and give it the "special touch". Think of "enhanced" Perl code or loops with more code in the condition part than in the normal body in general... BUT obfuscation or making things intentionally more complex sounds actually like an insult in that context although - when asked by a superior - the CG will defend that style as saving time and the company's money. So, did laziness and hmmm... the coolness factor contribute to the acronyms' success?
Or is the reason one very popular character trait of the Common Geek, the laziness (or cleverness, seen from the other side
Axes high!
My father-in-law, a university lecturer, once asked me what the acronym SPAM stood for. Imagine his disappointment when I told him that it's not an acronym, it comes from the classic Monty Python sketch. He went off muttering something about the entire computer industry being run by 16 year olds.
I was conned by an old man in a cloak. It turns out those *were* the droids I was looking for.
"The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms"
This guy certainly never had to deal with the military.
About other people's "speak" like Corp speak, marketing speak, finance speak etc...
...
All these "speaks" have their purpose, just because you don't understand it, it doesn't mean it doesn't have a purpose, even if you would not understand that purpose
users get frustrated with geek speak, geeks get frustrated with manager speak... Just stop complaining, it seems to be a fact of life...
...78% of geeks were found to be unaware that a "BurMaster" is a device available only on TV shopping channels and used for removing rustic speech patterns.
Look... *I* didn't know that VOD stood for Video on Demand, and I'm employed in professional IT and read slashdot daily. How come 25% of my countrymen know an acronym that I don't...?
When I was looking at the research papers, the worst offenders of over-using acronyms were americans.
To add insult to the injury, not only did they used lots of acronyms, but they didn't even clearly defined them the first time they used a new acronym, grrr..
Without resorting to searching the web, can anyone here correctly identify the following acronyms:
CPM
BAC
BSA
KPI
EAC
OBS
RAMP
Hmm - I could get two of those, tops.
All industries have their own acronyms, and most people outside those industries aren't familiar with them. There's just some odd belief out there that computers and technology are supposed to be understood by everyone, and I've never got to grips with that. I have no clue about the functions of my washing machine other than I should put it on 8, set the temperature to whatever my wife tells me and press start.
Developers all over the world truly believe their greatest gift to mankind is their supreme cleverness. How many hours did Richard Stallman spend devising the phrase "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.'"?
What about all the time that was sacrificed to come up with the, extraordinarly clever, recursive acronym GNU (GNU's Not Unix)?
If you rob them of this fundamental joy, what do they really have to live for?
People have no difficulty learning sports, political, etc jargon which is every bit as cryptic as technical jargon.
Abbreviation: FBI, CIA Acronym: LASER, MASER Difference - an acronym has to be a pronounceable word.
Or as Tanya and I call it "Stinky Pasta".
A few anchovies mashed up...A pod of garlic mashed up...Enough Colavita to make a nice slurry...
Throw it in the pot and heat it just enough to take (some of) the bite off of the garlic.
2 big bowls of linguini (well, I prefer Capelinni, but Tanya likes linguini) and a lot of parmesan.
Good on Friday, when you have the weekend to sweat it out. Or Sunday if you want to be left alone at work on Monday!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Easy. Squirrels, Possums, And Mice.
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
So? This is a non sequitur. People interested in a hobby, sport or common idea often develop phrases and acronyms unique to the topic and there is generally always a learning curve involved. Ever try to really talk to a serious sports fan about their favorite sport?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This is a standard everywhere though, I know there are some things in physics that have self referencing acronyms.
Though my Favorite is still PINE (simply b/c I grewup ussing the program)
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Ha! A new one! IT has LOA! WTF? ROFLMAO!
IDUWATFIA
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
They should try working at NASA where the acronym comes first, and the meaning is developed later. In a good work-related meeting, you can limit the acronyms to only a couple per sentance. During a particularly punishing meeting you have to break out the aspirin.
And how much of it is Marketingmumble?
I've found in a lot of cases that when people complain about "technical terms" and "geek talk", it usually turns out to be phrases used by suits, not techs.
But it *is* an acronym (or an abbreviation anyway) of sorts for Spiced Ham.
Then comes all the slashdot IANAIPH. And right after it the expanded acronym.
:P
If you have a known acronym, use it. Or use the full expression instead. I don't see the point on using both forms in the same sentence (besides a wish that it becomes a known acronym to be able to say "it was my creation").
To end this post/rant, it was directed to everybody, not just you. And I am not a *insert profession here*.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.