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. "

Comments

actually...

[SEAL]

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 :)

Sigh.

[dewie]

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.

Wow.

[Jello B.]

Think of how confusing "IANAL" must be to them.

It's not just Acronyms...

[XNine]

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.

Re:It's not just Acronyms...

[daranz]

If someone showed me two species of ducks, that are significantly different from each other (like, a different color of feathers), and then told me their names, I'd probably get them mixed up if they asked me to identify a duck a week later. That's because I don't work with ducks. I am not into ducks. I don't care what species they are, and I have no need to know.

I guess it's similar with people who have no desire or need to know what's inside of their computer. On the other hand, you have to know the difference between a truck and a bus for your everyday life.

Re:It's not just Acronyms...

[chrylis]

This is the reason I'm always very careful to maintain the distinction between "memory" (RAM) and "space" (secondary storage). Non-geeks may not always understand just from the terms what the difference is, but I've found that most people can grasp the analogy between "memory" (things I have in my head) vs. "space" (things I can't remember but wrote down and put in my desk for next week).

Re:It's not just Acronyms...

[Skadet]

You know, back in high school when I sold computers for a chain, I came up with this helper:

Let's say your computer is a kitchen. Your hard drive is the cabinets, and your RAM is the countertop. If you have lots of cabinets and a small countertop, you can still cook whatever you want, you'll just be cleaning up and putting pots and pans away a lot more often. If you have a large counter, you can cook and cook until you're done, and clean it all up at once.

Nothing earthshattering, but I got a lot of "Ohhhh!!"s after explaining it that way.

Re:It's not just Acronyms...

[pilkul]

That's certainly true from a theoretical/expert standpoint, but we're talking about the experience of everyday users here. Adding more "memory" to a typical Windows computer doesn't allow storage of any more files, but makes the computer faster. That's no minor pedantic distinction: the hardware has an effect which is entirely different from what a layman would expect just knowing its name.

Advancement of Technology

[pen]

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.

Re:Advancement of Technology

[Rockinsockindune]

Your analogy is a layer too deep. That would be compared to someone not knowing how to code a program, but still able to execute one. A better analogy would be, "My Mother doesn't know what PCV stands for in PCV Valve (positive crankcase ventilation), but she can still drive her car."

OTOH if the electronics industry were like the pharmacutical industry, we would have (at least) two names for every piece of electronics, one that is useful and descriptive (chemical), and one that is interesting and distinguishing (brand name). But wait, we already do don't we? For some reason, they are so much more interchangable in the electronics industry. MP3 player = IPod = Zune.

As far as acronyms go, the more complex the item, the harder it gets to usefully describe it in a short way.

Maybe, though, the article misses the point of Jargon the language, esp. the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group. The article should be about people joining a group, but don't care enough, or don't have the capacity to understand exactly what they are doing.

They are called acronyms

[suso]

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.

No problem

[marcello_dl]

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'...

what?

[joe 155]

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!"

Re:TLAs

[PsychoSlashDot]

I suppose it's worth mentioning that TLA isn't a TLA. Well, it's not the TLA you think it is. It's a Three-Letter-Abbreviation. See, the amusing thing is that an acronym is a word. It's pronounced. FBI and CIA are examples of non-acronyms. FUBAR and SCSI are examples of acronyms. Abbreviations on the other hand are simple short versions of things.

Re:WTF?!

[markana]

If they would just RTFM, they'd grok the TLAs.

Lu5er5... :-)

Re:N.T.S.H.M.A.

[Tony Hoyle]

Of course in the UK you need a MAC to change ISPs.

People get confused if you give them your MAC instead of your MAC so you'd better not get the two mixed up... Your Mac might have a MAC but that's not the MAC that you need.

A simple technological solution:

[Ichijo]

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.)

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[vertinox]

This reminds me of when I took my A+ certs back in the 90's when you still had to memorize the acroynyms and what they stood like PCI, ISA, SCSI, and EISA,that other properietary standard IBM used (that I can't remember even the acronym...I remember what they looked like... those special blue slot cards), and maybe a dozen other legacy technology names and things.

But yet during my job at any place... Anywhere... No one ever questioned about what the actual acronym but rather what the difference was... As in... PCI was the new faster standard on ATX motherboards and ISA was the long black slots for older systems (even though you couldn't buy a new computer at that point without both).

These days I can't remember any of them except International Standards Association and I'm assuming EISA is Enchandced? (I even kept an EISA card around to show off to people).

So I think people don't really need to remember what the acronym really says, but what the technology does, because otherwise its a waste of space in your brain in 5 years when the technology is no longer in use.

Re:Too many acronyms?!?

[rizzo420]

I didn't RTFA, but WTF? FYI IANAL, but AFAIK this is slander, AKA lies. I'd sue FTW ASAP. J/K, LOL.

I didn't read the f@#king article, but what the f@#k? for your information i am not a lawyer, but as far as i know this is slander, also known as lies. i'd sue for the win as soon as possible. just kidding, laugh out loud.

Problem is not the acronyms

[Meccanica]

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!!

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[sm62704]

VOD stands for video-on-demand,

I didn;t know that. When you use an acronym you should let people know wtf (What The Fuck) your stupid acronym means. Otherwise, I (and others) will assume you're a fucktard trying to snow me.

Too lazy to spell it? Fuck off then, I'm not the least interested.

acronyms

[cpangelich]

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.

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[pipingguy]

I'm pretty sure that since as long as language exists those who have the ability to make up new words or to grasp the meaning of a new word without a lot of explanation belonged to the smarter segment of the population.

But probably most maker-uppers-of-words/terms do so for marketing reasons.

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[mcrbids]

Funny.

But what gets me is that there are acronyms in EVERY field. In California Education you have acronyms like "CBEDS" (California Basic Educational Data Service) and "CSIS". (California Statewide Identifer System)

In automechanics you have acronyms like TDC (Top Dead Center) and MAFS (Mass Air Flow Sensor)

In Aviation you have acronyms like POH, (Pilot Operator's Handbook) VOR (Very high frequency Omidirectional Ranging) and Vne. (Velocity never to exceed)

In medicine, you have acronyms like ADD, (Attention Deficit Disorder) CPR, (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation) and ARF. (Acute Renal Failure)

My point is that people are people. When confronted with a highly verbose, technical explanation of a situation, people will tend to condense that using acronyms or field-specific wording in order to save time.

You don't say "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol" every time you want to say "DHCP", you say "DHCP" because those that are familiar with it need nothing more.

So people outside the industry are unfamiliar with these terms? Well DUH...

I don't expect to know what "California Framing" is in construction, because it's a term specific to contracting, and I'm not a contractor.