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

Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[aoism]

pepople cant memorize computer industry acronyms

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[cabinetsoft]

Beat this: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA - American Amateur Applied Arts Academy Association Against Absurd And Asininely Artificial Alliterative Acronyms Award

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[jacquesm]

IANALA (I am *not* a language analyst) but 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. The faster our development becomes the more important these skills are. We've now reached a point in time where it won't be long before the rate of development has become so great that it is possible for two people to no longer be able to communicate with each other even though they share a common language due to this vocabulary development gap.

If you don't believe that try to decipher an SMS message sent by one 13 year old to another :)

And PCMCIA was a pretty good example, but some of the stuff I see here on /. causes me to reach for the nearest search engine to figure out what on earth they mean.

this place could easily be nicknamed buzzword central :)

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[Anonymous Coward]

pepople cant memorize computer industry acronyms

I'll grant that PCMCIA was one of the worst ever. However, I still see relatively non-geeky people using it, despite the fact that it was shortened years ago to just PC card. Yet, if I say "PC card", they think I mean a video card.

OTOH (look it up, lazy ones) people just don't care enough to learn anything new -- it's just toooo haaaarrrrd Maybe it's just trickle down from the fist-pumping manager assholes who insist that the world come to them and "present" (how damned obsequious) everything in the manager's own "business terms".

Screw 'em all -- they're obviously too dull to look up or print out one of the many excellent online online acronym dictionaries.

If a teenaged girl can decide she needs a D&C after the rubber busts, her father can damned well find out what a FAQ is. Put that on your P&L sheet, jerk. Stay up with the rest of the class or drop out.

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:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[Fordiman]

I've got no problem with slang or jargon in any form.

Just so long as they don't try to teach it in school (Ebonics, I'm looking at you), and as long as relatively standard english (large regional variations apply here) is spoken in professional environments.

A big push in the IT department where I work is to say the whole thing, rather than just the acronym. There is, of course, the issue of things like GNU (which is often used), but we're told to just treat it like a brand name.

Re:Obligatory PCMCIA joke here

[gdog05]

"Oh Stewardess...I speak jive"

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.

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

[nacturation]

A big push in the IT department where I work is to say the whole thing, rather than just the acronym.

I think you meant to say Information Technology department. Might want to send out a company-wide electronic mail so that others don't make this mistake.

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.

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 :)

Re:actually...

[climbing]

statistics or anecdotes aside...
there is something troubling about the pace of technology change and tech-language change when it starts to intimidate buyers; alienate populations; exploit the niave...

it is hard to keep pace with new acronyms and insider lingo. harder still to research best-value when buying a new product. how much of this acronym is enough?

are you a teacher? smart ass /. reader? IT professional? a parent? son/daughter to someone struggling with e-mail? parent? then please **TEACH people how to look stuff up!**

give people a fishing pole: google, wikipedia, industry acronym lists, textbooks, reference books. teaching people to be independent researchers is very important. more important in the info-age? maybe. feels like it ot me.

Re:actually...

[Dachannien]

For example:

AIREVACCONFIRM
MARCORMATCOM
SCATMINEWARN

These and many others are available here.

WTF?!

[valkabo]

WTF NUBS?! RTFM!

Re:WTF?!

[markana]

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

Lu5er5... :-)

The only acronym you need

[HappyHead]

DMUANUY
Don't Make Up Acronyms - Nobody Understands You

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.

Re:Sigh.

[dewie]

Even of you'd used...

And there's the inevitable typo in a grammar-nazi post. Double-sigh.

Re:Sigh.

[E IS mC(Square)]

>>Even of you'd used the word you meant, it'd still have been the wrong word.

I don't usually like to complain about grammar and spelling in post replies, but come on, at least get your spellings right while cribbing about it, especially when you'd used the world you did not mean is the wrong word.

Re:Sigh.

[QuickFox]

especially when you'd used the world you did not mean is the wrong word

Suppose you get your English right... :-D

Re:Sigh.

[wall0159]

It's because we try to show how intelligent and sophisticated we are by using words we can't spell, and whose meaning we don't really know.

aren't we humans a bunch of wankers? ;-)

Re:Sigh.

[Resident Netizen]

elude/allude

Elude means 'to escape'.
Allude is a common depressant.

Re:Sigh.

[pilkul]

Those of us who use a thesaurus can fake it with perfect spezzatura!

Wow.

[Jello B.]

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

Re:OMG fp

[Anonymous Coward]

fp? Now what the fuck is that?

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...

[TempeTerra]

Oh, crap. Here comes the apocalypse.

And by these signs shall ye be warned:
natural order turned a-head -
the chicken rises from the pot;
laws of logic lose their sway -
appropriate analogies on Slashdot

Re:It's not just Acronyms...

[Tim Browse]

I am not into ducks.

The slashdotter doth protest too much, methinks.

Re:It's not just Acronyms...

[hey!]

And the CPU is the hot-plate?

Actually, each CPU core is an oven.

We used have just one oven in our stove, but now we have multi-oven stoves. This doesn't help us roast a turkey faster (unless we find a way to cut the turkey in half), but it helps us when we have to cook the pumpkin pie at the same time.

Servers are like pantries; these days we each have our own kitchen in a workgroup, which shares a single pantry. Over the whole organization, we end up with a lot of pantries, and unfortunately a lot of times what you need is in a pantry that is on the other side of the building. It gets complicated.

Now Service Oriented Architectures are like if the company decided to set up a little food court with a butcher, baker and saucier chef. Instead of dressing and trussing the turkey you'd have the butcher do it for you. You can get dough, pie crusts or finished pies from the baker, and teh saucier will supply things like hollandaise sauce. One you're set up to cook that way, you can use outside suppliers, like if you needed want pate a choux instead of the simple pate brisee your in-house baker provides.

Oh, man I'm goign to town with this one.

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.

hmmm

[nrgy]

With all my L33T knowledge I still trying to figure out what the GIRL acronym means. Oh well back to WoW.

Too many acronyms?!?

[EasyT]

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

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.

Re:Too many acronyms?!?

[tool462]

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 reheat the fettucini alfredo, but why the fuss? Food you ingest isn't always noodles and liquid, but also fried and I know this is slander, all knavery and lies. I'd sue fraudulent temp waiters (and salt and pepper). Just kidding, love oily linguini.

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.

Re:Advancement of Technology

[Kjella]

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.

That depends on the inherent complexity of what you want to do. You basicly want a car to go in a given direction at a given speed. For that you have a wheel and two pedals (msking it as easy as possible). You have four actions, turn left, turn right, accelerate and brake. Almost everything else can be automated away (or is convieniently forgot like people that don't use turn signs, but I digress).

Using a computer means very many different things to very many people. I assure you that the way I use a computer, it will never ever be particularly easy. There's so many degrees of freedom I'd like, so many different things I'd like to run and so many settings for each, that you can't take away from me. And since the computer seems to be useful for more and more, it looks to me like the complexity is growing rather than shrinking because the flexibility is increasing too.

Yes, your mother could probably use an appliance where the uses are limited down to only a few, and thus the understanding required to use it. It might even be enough to make her happy, but I don't think you can reduce away the complexity of the general purpose computer, because quite a lot comes from it being general purpose. Of course many things could have been done better or more user-friendly or with sane defaults for average people, but I don't think it'll ever become easy.

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'...

"foxed"...wtf?

[rootrot]

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....

Re:"foxed"...wtf?

[Ed Avis]

Sir, to defend our trademark me must request and require that you cease and desist from mentioning foxes in any Slashdot comment without prior approval.

Sincerely, Mozilla Corporation.

Newsflash!

[daVinci1980]

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.

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!"

wtf

[burndive]

It's a great program I have on my Linux box:

http://www.gentoo-portage.com/games-misc/wtf

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: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.

Definetly the military.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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.)

Acronym resuse and abuse

[Secrity]

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.

Re:Acronym resuse and abuse

[djp928]

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.

You missed the obvious gamer geek one: Penny Arcade

-- Dave

Re:TLAs

[Triv]

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

The correct term for what you're talking about (an abbreviation that isn't pronouncable as a word, like "wtf") is an initialism .

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:TLAs

[nohat]

It's too bad this old myth is still being perpetuated. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym_and_initialis m the Wikipedia article for a full explanation.

Re:That's not it.

[Fordiman]

Hehe.

It's a DVR.

It's a what?

A digital video recorder.

Oh, you mean like a TiVo?

I'll recycle a remark of mine on LWN

[smittyoneeach]

The TLA namespace is just too crowded.

Thus was born the Extented TLA, or ETLA.
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.

Re:I'll recycle a remark of mine on LWN

[FellowConspirator]

TLA = Three Letter Acronym EFLA = Extended Four Letter Acronym ULFLA = Unnecessarily Long Five Letter Acronym CYHSLA = Can You Have Six Letter Acronyms?

Re:TLAs

[StarkRG]

I did, but people just thought I was sneezing.

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: people cant memorize industry acronyms

[Badfysh]

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.