Explain Yourself

I do not know what you mean. I am a retired Principle Mechanical Designer. One of my jobs was to write the engineering scope of work and the Construction Scope of Work for each project assigned to me. Our overall job, as engineers and designers is to translate engineering data into a language a craftsman can understand. For me and anyone else who's native language is English, this means using plain and simple English. The use of acronyms and abbreviations is a strict no-no. It is certain that the craftsman, who has spent years learning his trade, does not have a slot in his forehead to read floppies, nor does he have a place in the field to plug in his comptuer so that he can find a definition for any term, acronym, or abbreviation he comes across. He has to either guess at your meaning or take critical time away from the job to find and ask an engineer the meaning. And all too often, the engineer has a hard time figuring it out. Never, in any history of engineering, is there a directive against using the written language properly. In fact, inmost engineering degree programs, there is a requirement for a language and language compositon. This includes report writing. It is too bad if any engineer is allowed to receive his degree without passing these courses. In all fields, regardless, communication is the one most important tool anyone can have. I am an advocate of not using acronyms ever, unless one spells it out at least one time and never repeats the acronym with a different meaning in the same article. "SPELL IT OUT, DAMNIT", or I will flunk you.

Tank!!!

I am SO glad to see that I am not the only one who has problems with these bloody acronyms!! My most recent (this morning) was "CBS System" What the hell is CBS? Last I heard, it was Columbia Broadcast System. I gather (in the authors mind) that it is "Circuit Board Shielding". People take acronyms which have been in place for decades and use them for totally different applications.

Gotta Run

Bill

CBS Stands for "Creative Bullsht Session"....

at one time in the history of computers, stoarge space and band width were at a premium and acronyms and abbreviation's were absolutely necessary. But today with broad band, even high speed dial-up modems, and gigabite hard drives and processors, teh need for acronyms and abbreviations has gone by the wayside. For clarity, we need to go back to using our natural language full time and say what we mean. How about our schools marking down one grade level for each acronym used on each paper turned in for class assignment just as they used to do for each misspelled word when I was in school back in the "good old days" (1939 through college in 1960). Back then, if we dod not learn or three "R's" we were held back a grade and we had to go to school whether we needed to or not. Today, it seems or kids are smarter than we are until they can't find or keep a meaningful career because they never learn the three "R's". Jay Leno's sidewalk interviews point this out oh so clearly. I think he has the same problems with his writers, too, and they are on strick for more money????

I might add, for those who would like to really learn, try this: http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/0_Free_Education.php

What are the three R's, is this an acronym (an inappropriate one at that) for reading, writing and arithmetic (i think it should actually be RWA). Acronyms are completely acceptable even in college writing course and scientific writing they are preferred in some situations. who wants to spell out the United States Environmental Protection Agency every other sentence. Without the use of an acronym this gets extremely tedious to read and makes the documents more cumbersome than using USEPA. Imagine having to read the full names of every agency in background discussion regarding meetings involving Caltrans, USBR, USEPA, Cal DTSC, Cal RWQCB, and Cal DWR. The proper agency names alone will fill three lines of text. The one thing that is necessary is that you always include an acronyms list and spell out the acronym the first time it is defined in a document. You should, however, consider your audience and try to be clear with the acronyms, i.e. EPA could mean Cal EPA or USEPA in my area. Plus in some cases the acronyms are more common and better understood than the actual proper name, e.g. EPA, SCS, USBR, RWQCB, DWR, CalTrans.

Now to the fact that contractors do not understand acronyms, I have seen many well written contract documents and specifications, with minimal acronym usage, and the contractors still do not read them. I have seen many contractors who repeatedly fail to meet long time, well established, very clear municipal standards because they claim another city 300 miles away does it differently and that is what they are used to doing. In all honesty, no matter how you spell it out they will not read it anyways. If you don't use acronyms, it will be too long and tedious for them to read and they won't read it. If you define the acronyms and use them, they will be claim confusion regarding the meaning of the acronym.

FIrst of all, I did not say not to use acronyms, I said that if you do, then ONE (1) time, spell it out. Example, IRA, does that equal Irish Republican Army or Individual Retirement Account? One day, the IRA asked me to do some fork for them and I would be paid for the work with my IRA account.

SInce a portion of my working days also had me overseeing contractors from other places, I am quite familiar with those contractors who failed to read their contracts. I am also quite familiar with those Inspectors who did not inspect the contractor's work. I am, also, very familiar with certain labor unions and the quaitly of their work. I learned rather early in my career to look up to those craftsmen who do take their work seriously and who continue to take the time to improve upon their skills. I am also well aware of the OSHA regulations and their purpose and reasoning. I do understand, as well, the ASME codes as they apply to my work. I am sorry, I still insist on spelling our the meaning, at least once in each article, the meaning of Irish Republican Army (IRA) verses Individual Retirement Account.
(hehehe). Now, if we were doctors, that would be a different matter; it is only our life and health at risk in that case, not our safety.

Acronyms are on the Red List.

So long as they are only discharged to atmosphere it's OK......