Acronyms

I rely on this quite a bit, but as you can see there's 189 acronyms for MAC alone.

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/mac

WTF LOL ROTFLMAO

Without acronym abuse we would have to have people actually know what they are talking about to be able to post here. Part of my fun here is seeing the variety crossed purpose communications started here. This reminds me of a quote from Tom Leher, "...people who can't communicate, the very least they should do is shut up."

Now as a frequent replier to many threads, I have occasionally deliberately responded using an acronym definition that I believe is wrong. Particularly if the topic is out of my field of expertise. By doing this, readers can identify who knows what is going on and occasionally the OP realizes that more information is needed for a valid discussion.

Lastly, let me say DILLIGAF. Actually I do.

_{Wow, the spell checker didn't burp any of those acronyms. What does that tell us?}

Tells us that the SPOOLCHUKKER ignores stuff in OOPER-KASE.

The acronyms are bad enough, but what is even worse are some absolutely inane requests and ridiculous descriptions, lacking sense or direction or logic. Things just don't add up. But then that's what there is. So one may well ask, why do we stick around. We do, you know. Is it for the entertainment or what ? As for acronyms, to what I don't understand I don't respond. If we all did it, it may begin to catch on.

Let's file this along with all the other things that get discussed about every two or three months as the newbies get bold and think of "new" ways to do things.

No offense RDGRNR, we've cussed and discussed this issue numerous times with no resolution. But, always happy to jump in with another opinion.

Cheers.

Most of my engineering career was with the U.S. Department of Defense. One guideline we had that actually made sense was that an acronym had to be spelled out the first time it was used in a document. This was especially necessary because many acronyms were used to represent different terms and programs.

I agree, and have said so in posts several times over the last few years. How about starting with RDGRNR?

RIDGERUNNER!

Here, here. CRIMINAL

Just my 2 cents worth. As someone who reads this site daily in an effort to learn something about everything I would really appreciate if people would use the full term at least the first time they use it in a post. But I fully understand why that would seem inconvient and unnecessary in a communication between peers.

GA (Good Answer!), but, if the OP (Original Poster) in any particular thread expects the answer to come from one of his peers, then one would hope that he would have a better idea of where to go to look for the answer. The great thing about CR4 is that by looking at other peoples problems we learn about other subjects, and, often the solution comes from out of left field in another discipline. There is also the problem which Masu highlights: that acronyms are by no means common across all cultures/international boundaries.

A company I used to work for (they actually did me a favor by 'down sizing' me, now I work for their competition) terribly overused acromyns. To the extent we in field service may use ABC for something, but sales and/or manufacturing used ABC to be something very different in their departments.

Got to the point corporate office even published a TLA document (Three Letter Acronym list)