Acronyms & Abbreviations--Just Say NO!
Tom Murrell
I suppose that a long time ago when correcting typed pages required white out and
razor blades and the process of putting together documentation was laborious and
cumbersome, it made sense to use acronyms and abbreviations to simplify the writing
process. Typing out a long phrase over and over again created additional chances to
introduce errors in a document, and there were plenty even so under the best editing
and review regime. So making use of acronyms and abbreviations was a way to not only
shorten the task but reduce errors, too.
Today we do all this work on computers. Some of our software will even check
spelling with reasonable accuracy. Some day I'm sure there will be programmable
grammar and context checkers to make error-catching even easier. Still, we have
tools far superior to those that were around even 10 or 15 years ago. I think it's
time we made use of those tools.
My experience suggests that the single most important step that can be taken to
improve clarity in writing is the reduction in use of pronouns. In fact, I would go
so far as to assert that the elimination of pronoun use would make a tremendous
improvement in writing at all levels, even among professionals.
Right behind pronoun use (or misuse, to be more precise) the use of acronyms and
abbreviations serve to obscure meaning and reduce clarity of communication in favor
of making the job easier for writers. It is easier to type FYI than to type For Your
Information, so we do that even though we all get a curious interrogative reply
occasionally asking what the heck FYI means (or YMMV or AFAIK or whatever). And
official or work-related acronyms and abbreviations cause far more confusion than
these shorthands do.
Moreover, we can still use these shortcuts in our typing while doing a global search
and replace pass over the document to change them all from abbreviations or acronyms
to their full spelling, and we can do this with virtually no effort on our part.
Certainly it is no more effort than creating a glossary is.
Now that we have the tools, I believe we should drastically reduce, if not
eliminate, our use of acronyms and abbreviations. If our goal is communication, we
should not put arbitrary barriers to achieving that goal in the way or our readers.
=====
Tom Murrell
mailto:trmu...@yahoo.com
http://home.columbus.rr.com/murrell/index.html Last Updated 05/26/2003
--I am currently at an undisclosed location. If you find me, please tell me where I am!--
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Kim Roper
Tom Murrell wrote:
| Now that we have the tools, I believe we should drastically
| reduce, if not
| eliminate, our use of acronyms and abbreviations. If our goal
| is communication, we
| should not put arbitrary barriers to achieving that goal in
| the way or our readers.
OK.
Cheers ... Kim
Goober Writer
Acronyms are not a means of just making typing easier,
they are a means of quickly communicating info to
others. They are used in common speak. They are
perfectly valid. No one wants to read "HyperText
Markup Language" over and over again, no one want's to
say it over and over again. People familiarize
themselves with acronyms to speed up the communication
process. If you are using so many acronyms that you
become confused or your confusae others, well, there's
an audience and knowledge issue at play. Acronyms are
useful.
I dare you to write a networking manual without ever
abbreviating:
Copper Distributed Data Interface
Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection
Domain Name System
Fiber Distributed Data Interface
Integrated Services Digital Network
Local Area Network
megabits per second
Network File System
Network Information Center
Network Operations Center
Open Systems Interconnect Model
Private Branch Exchange
Point-of-Presence
Point-to-Point Protocol
Secure Sockets Layer
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
Simple Network Management Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
Wide Area Network
among many, many others...
=====
Goober Writer
(because life is too short to be inept)
Jan Henning
| Acronyms are not a means of just making typing easier,
| they are a means of quickly communicating info to
| others. They are used in common speak. They are
| perfectly valid.
Both Goober and Tom do have a point: Some acronyms are helpful in
technical texts and others aren't, as their respective examples show.
A good rule of thumb seems to be to write acronyms when they would be
spoken as well (and wouldn't be classified as colloquial). Thus "HTML"
but "by the way", "DVD" but "as far as I can remember".
Always using the most common form like this minimizes possible
confusion for the reader.
Regards
Jan Henning
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan Henning
ROSEMANN & LAURIDSEN GMBH
Am Schlossberg 14, D-82547 Eurasburg, Germany
Phone: +49 700 0200 0700, Fax: +49 8179 9307-12
E-Mail: hen...@r-l.de, Web: www.r-l.de
--------------------------------------------------------------------
eric...@ca.transport.bombardier.com
|>I dare you to write a networking manual without ever
|>abbreviating:
|>Copper Distributed Data Interface
|>Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection
|>Domain Name System
|>Fiber Distributed Data Interface
|>Integrated Services Digital Network
|>Local Area Network
|>megabits per second
|>Network File System
|>Network Information Center
|>Network Operations Center
|>Open Systems Interconnect Model
|>Private Branch Exchange
|>Point-of-Presence
|>Point-to-Point Protocol
|>Secure Sockets Layer
|>Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
|>Simple Network Management Protocol
|>Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
|>Wide Area Network
|>
|>among many, many others...
|>
|>=====
|>Goober Writer
I'd take the proof of the usefulness of acronyms and the silliness of avoiding
them one step further. In the above list, how many of the terms give you any
real idea of what they refer to? Readers unfamiliar with these terms will be
looking them up anyway, so does it really aid communication if they're looking
up Local Area Network instead of LAN?
|From the original post:
|>It is easier to type FYI than to type For Your
|>Information, so we do that even though we all get a curious interrogative
reply
|>occasionally asking what the heck FYI means (or YMMV or AFAIK or whatever).
But consider the thousands of readers that did NOT ask what it meant. Are we
supposed to dumb-down all our communication to the lowest denominator? Or, more
logically, should we just provide the resources/help to those that need it (or
politely point the lost souls to Google).
Eric L. Dunn
Dick Margulis
eric...@ca.transport.bombardier.com wrote:
I think Tom's position was a bit extreme, but I'm not entirely in agreement with Eric here, either.
It's all a question of figuring out what your audience expects and is comfortable with, and the choices you make are going to vary from one kind of document for a given audience and another kind of document for the same or a different audience.
Nobody is ever going to make exactly the right choices all the time, because there is no one exactly right choice in most circumstances. You use your judgment and adjust as needed as time goes on.
|
|
|>
|But consider the thousands of readers that did NOT ask what it meant. Are we
|supposed to dumb-down all our communication to the lowest denominator? Or, more
|logically, should we just provide the resources/help to those that need it (or
|politely point the lost souls to Google).
|
Dick Margulis
Sorry about the placement of the attribution line for Eric. It belongs with the cited material at the bottom of my post.
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Dick Margulis " <marg...@mail.fiam.net>
Reply-To: "Dick Margulis " <marg...@mail.fiam.net>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:15:53 -0400
|
|eric...@ca.transport.bombardier.com wrote:
|I think Tom's position was a bit extreme, but I'm not entirely in agreement with Eric here, either.
|
|
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Goober Writer
| Always using the most common form like this
| minimizes possible
| confusion for the reader.
Right. But, FWIW, sometimes ppl speak in the strangest
ways. Oh well. YMMV.
HSIOM!
- Goober
=====
Goober Writer
(because life is too short to be inept)
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Solveig Haugland
Writing out acronyms got reallllllly out of hand in the editing department of a
place where I worked. Had to do it for everything--CD-ROM, the works. And since
the editors never actually had to set foot in a classroom (tech training group)
or know the topics or do anything but enforce the weird strict set of rules, we
got stuff like this.
- In a servlets and JSPs class, in the HTTP section, the editors without asking
wrote out POST, i.e. the POST command, as Power On Self Test, since they found
POST in their Solaris acronym list. It was in the training materials for two
years. ;>
- In another class referring to ATM, don't remember the context but it wasn't
fonts or printing, the editors wrote it out as Adobe Type Manager.
And another editor anecdote that's not related to acronyms but is funny, a
writer doing a database class got back an editor's comment about the discussion
of non-normalized databases. The editor had crossed out "non-normalized
databases" and written in "unusual databases."
I'll go along with reducing unclear pronoun use, of course. Also I've found that
"get" can be really unclear, esp when combined with passive voice, since "get"
means both to go out and obtain something, and to just sit back and receive it.
Solveig
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sol...@getopenoffice.org
OpenOffice.org Training and Books
www.getopenoffice.org
Janice Gelb
Tom Murrell <:trmu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
| Right behind pronoun use (or misuse, to be more precise) the
| use of acronyms and abbreviations serve to obscure meaning
| and reduce clarity of communication in favor of making the
| curious interrogative reply occasionally asking what the heck
| related acronyms and abbreviations cause far more confusion than
| these shorthands do.
|
First of all, the acronyms you cite as causing reader
confusion are not acronyms that I think are generally
used in technical documentation. I mainly see them in
email or list posts. I believe most people reading this
type of email or message accept that people are striving
for brevity and one soon gets used to the common acronyms.
Regarding technical documentation, our rule is that acronyms
(except *exceedingly* common ones like CPU) should be written
out on first usage. Also, the acronym should appear in both
forms (acronym with spelled-out term in parentheses, and
spelled-out term with acronym in parentheses) in the index,
with one form being the primary entry and the other being
a cross-reference. And if your book has a glossary,
acronyms should appear there also.
These rules should avoid reader confusion, and enable
writers to use acronyms common to their industry and
technology area.
-- Janice
Anthony Davey
While we're on the subject, and the heat makes it feel like a Friday (in
southern England at least) could someone please demystify YMMV?
I've thought about it long and hard, in context as well, and am
convinced it should actually be YVMV (your views may vary). YMMV can,
to my mind, only mean 'Your Mind May Vary'. My mind often wanders, but
it stays much the same all the time; so clarification please!
Best regards,
Ant
Goober Writer wrote:
|Right. But, FWIW, sometimes ppl speak in the strangest
|ways. Oh well. YMMV.
|
|
Bruce Wolf
Your Mileage May Vary.
Perhaps "Your Carriageway May Meander" is more fitting in your locale?
;-)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Davey" <a...@ant-davey.com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <tech...@lists.raycomm.com>
Cc: "TECHWR-L" <tech...@lists.raycomm.com>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: Acronyms & Abbreviations--Just Say NO!
|
| While we're on the subject, and the heat makes it feel like a Friday (in
| southern England at least) could someone please demystify YMMV?
|
| I've thought about it long and hard, in context as well, and am
| convinced it should actually be YVMV (your views may vary). YMMV can,
| to my mind, only mean 'Your Mind May Vary'. My mind often wanders, but
| it stays much the same all the time; so clarification please!
|
| Best regards,
| Ant
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
GeneK
It's "your mileage may vary," and comes from the fine print
on the mileage labels that are required by law to be glued
onto every new car sold in the US. The statement is a CYA
that informs the new car buyer that the tests used to
determine the numbers don't necessarily reflect the way
things will happen in the real world, and that the results are only applicable for one particular situation - the
test itself.
Gene Kim-Eng
------- Original Message -------
On
Mon, 16 Jun 2003 17:40:37 +0100 Anthony Davey?wrote:
While we're on the subject, and the heat makes it feel like a Friday (in
southern England at least) could someone please demystify YMMV?
I've thought about it long and hard, in context as well, and am
convinced it should actually be YVMV (your views may vary). YMMV can,
to my mind, only mean 'Your Mind May Vary'. My mind often wanders, but
it stays much the same all the time; so clarification please!
Dick Margulis
Anthony Davey <a...@ant-davey.com> wrote:
|
|While we're on the subject, and the heat makes it feel like a Friday (in
|southern England at least) could someone please demystify YMMV?
|
|
Ant,
<demystification>
During the administration of United States (US) President Jimmy Carter, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) successfully implemented a series of maneuvers that resulted in a gasoline (gas, petrol) shortage in the US. People waited in line for gasoline, were only able to purchase it on alternate days, and so forth.
As a result, the US Congress was able to pass legislation creating Corporate Average Fleet Economy (CAFE) standards to be enforced by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). These standards required that the average fuel economy for all automobiles sold by a given company in a given year be below some magic number that declined over time. In implementing the standards, the EPA began running tests (as they continue to do) that result in the placement of a sticker on the window of every new car sold, which sticker shows two numbers, city miles per gallon (mpg) and highway mpg.
Manufacturers, when they want to promote the relative economy of a small car, cite those numbers in their advertising; but because the tests are conducted under rigorous testing conditions, the numbers on the stickers tend to be lower (better) than the numbers real drivers get in cars they buy off the dealer's lot. So to protect their backsides from truth-in-advertising lawsuits, they always append the phrase, "your mileage may vary."
That's why the phrase is an American cliché and why it was adopted in that form.
</demystification>
Dick
Tom Murrell
A couple of points I would like to respond to at one time.
--- Goober Writer <goober...@yahoo.com> wrote:
| Acronyms are not a means of just making typing easier,
| they are a means of quickly communicating info to
| others.
Then why is so much time spent explaining them? And why
is the hardest part of a new job learning the alphabet
soup of the new organization? And, if I had a nickel
(that's a five cent piece American) for everytime I
asked an old hand what a particular initialism meant
only to be met with a blank stare, I could have retired
five years ago.
| They are used in common speak. They are
| perfectly valid.
They why do they have to be explained? If they are
common, wouldn't readers automatically understand
them? I'm not questioning the validity of
initialisms. I'm merely suggesting that communication
would be clearer over all if they, like pronouns,
were drastically cut back.
| No one wants to read "HyperText
| Markup Language" over and over again, no one want's to
| say it over and over again.
How do you know that? Have you run any tests? I have, and
I admit that my results are purely anecdotal, but I have
found that reducing initialism use to that which may be
absolutely necessary for clarity, maybe a tenth of what
I used to do, reduces confusion in reviews and questions
from readers. Readers DON'T consult the Glossary very much.
Readers DON'T consult the Index very much. And Readers
DON'T remember an initialism, particularly one with which
they aren't already familiar, for more than a few pages.
| If you are using so many acronyms that you
| become confused or your confusae others, well, there's
| an audience and knowledge issue at play.
That's my point exactly! We have a LOT of audience and
knowledge issues at play when people consult our
documents only to be confronted with alphabet soup.
--- Janice Gelb <janic...@sun.com> wrote:
| First of all, the acronyms you cite as causing reader
| confusion are not acronyms that I think are generally
| used in technical documentation. I mainly see them in
| email or list posts. I believe most people reading this
| type of email or message accept that people are striving
| for brevity and one soon gets used to the common acronyms.
You are correct that the acronyms I cited are not commonly
used in technical writing. I was using the shorthand of
Internet communications because they were the only examples
that came to mind that might have some degree of universality.
Had I used terms from the industry I'm currently documenting,
you would not have understood them. (And then several people,
unprompted by me, wrote in to inquire about one of those
so-called convenient shortcuts that we use.)
Oh, and I recommend the following example to those who think
"everybody knows what this acronym means." Go to
http://acronymfinder.com and enter any common acronym and
see how many different possible answers you get for it.
Even FTP has multiple possible meanings. The writer's
meaning has to be garnered from context and an appropriate
background knowledge, but then that can trip the reader up,
too.
| Regarding technical documentation, our rule is that acronyms
| (except *exceedingly* common ones like CPU) should be written
| out on first usage.(etc.)
I suspect most of us have similar rules. I found that if I define
an acronym someplace in the document and don't use it again for
several pages, the reader has forgotten what it is or meant. I've
already commented on how I see readers using glossaries and indices.
I consider it a rule of thumb that if people only turn to the
documentation in desperation, they are really in deep doo-doo
when they turn to the back of the book (or the front) to look
something up.
| These rules should avoid reader confusion, and enable
| writers to use acronyms common to their industry and
| technology area.
Obviously, I am challenging these assumptions. If they avoided
confusion, we wouldn't have SMEs showing up in meetings asking
"What does DASD mean again?" or whatever.
I will concede that initialisms CAN improve readability. However,
my basic position remains that writers use them as shortcuts to
their writing rather than as aids to their readers. What I'm
suggesting is that you continue to write them, but make a pass
through your document and remove about 75% of them and see if
communication doesn't actually improve.
=====
Tom Murrell
mailto:trmu...@yahoo.com
http://home.columbus.rr.com/murrell/index.html Last Updated 05/26/2003
--I am currently at an undisclosed location. If you find me, please tell me where I am!--
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DGold...@deustech.com
Dick Margulis wrote:
<snip>
| Manufacturers, when they want to promote the relative economy of a small > car, cite those numbers in their advertising; but because the tests are > conducted under rigorous testing conditions, the numbers on the stickers > tend to be lower (better) than the numbers real drivers get in cars they > buy off the dealer's lot. So to protect their backsides from truth-in-> > advertising lawsuits, they always append the phrase, "your mileage may > > vary."
</snip>
<nitpick>
No, the MPG numbers on the stickers tend to be *higher* (better) than the
numbers real drivers get. Don't we wish it were otherwise!
</nitpick>
Dan Goldstein
Anita Legsdin
I agree, even though I hate acronyms and will rewrite sentences to avoid
using them. Acronyms are definitely useful when something has a real
name that's too cumbersome to use (HTML, for example, or SNMP, or IEEE
or STC). However, I've seen specs written by software engineers full of
sentences like "The software package (SP)..." followed by references to
"SP" rather than "the software" or "the program". To me, this is just
nuts. And, is it really necessary to use QCC (quality control
committee), instead of just saying "the committee" (as long as everyone
knows which committee we're speaking of)?
When people ask me what an acronym means (and I don't know), one of my
favorite games is to respond with the first thing that pops in my head,
instead of researching what it actually stands for. To my horror, I am
often right.
| -----Original Message-----
| From: Dick Margulis [SMTP:marg...@mail.fiam.net]
| Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 8:16 AM
| To: TECHWR-L
| Subject: Re: Acronyms & Abbreviations--Just Say NO!
|
|
| It's all a question of figuring out what your audience expects and is
| comfortable with, and the choices you make are going to vary from one
| kind of document for a given audience and another kind of document for
| the same or a different audience.
|
Anita Legsdin
Sr. Technical Writer
WatchMark
(425) 564-8135
ML...@chrysalis-its.com
I, for one, don't want to read OR write "Hypertext Markup Language"
all the time, when "HTML" is an option.
Similarly, the people who work on/with a product tend to create
and use initialisms and acronyms, so the usual response of the
technical writer is to spell them out at first usage (and define
'em if required), to ENSURE that everybody is talking the same
language. If the reader is out of his/her depth and STILL won't
refer to the Glossary or navigation tools, then there comes
a time where we must stop kissing his/her rump and get on with
the task at hand... delivering useful information to the majority
of the target audience.
Isn't it fairly standard to define a certain anticipated/required
level of knowledge/familiarity on the part of the reader and then
NOT talk down to them or clutter their path with baby-talk in
the main document? Isn't it fairly standard to put extended
explanatory and catch-up information in appendices? Or in the
"For Dummies" book?
/kevin
Dick Margulis
DGold...@DeusTech.com wrote:
|<nitpick>
|No, the MPG numbers on the stickers tend to be *higher* (better) than the
|numbers real drivers get. Don't we wish it were otherwise!
|</nitpick>
I plead not guilty by reason of caffeine deficit!
eric...@ca.transport.bombardier.com
Tom Murrell :
|>Then why is so much time spent explaining them?
As you challenged another poster. Do you have the study handy backing up your
allegations that learning the acronyms uses up more resources than those saved
by using them in the first place?
|>And why is the hardest part of a new job learning the alphabet
|>soup of the new organization?
I doubt it's the hardest part. It's just one of the many things you have to
learn if you're going to be sufficiently technical/functional in a given field.
|>And, if I had a nickel (that's a five cent piece American) for everytime I
|>asked an old hand what a particular initialism meant
|>only to be met with a blank stare, I could have retired
|>five years ago.
While an interesting anecdote, I hardly think it's relevant. How many people
know what LASER or RADAR stand for? How many people know what they are? I'm sure
many more know what they are than what they stand for.
If the following were to be found in a document, how many would know what they
are?
- radio detection and ranging
- light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
How many had to think about it even though the acronyms were included in this
post first? I think that the spelled out versions may induce more confusion than
the acronyms. I challenge anyone to pick up a technical or general knowledge
article on either subject and read the spelled out version instead of the
acronym each and everytime it appears. I think you'd have to be a liar to say
that the resulting document is less confusing or more communicative than its
acronym laden original.
It's not what the initialism or acronym means that's important most of the time
but the concept/system behind the initialism/acronym. If that concept is
correctly communicated to/interpreted by the reader and is appropriate for the
audience, where's the problem? Slap a glossary in the doc and there's no reason
for complaint.
Eric L. Dunn
John Posada
|>And, if I had a nickel (that's a five cent piece American) for every time
I
|>asked an old hand what a particular initialism meant
|>only to be met with a blank stare, I could have retired
|>five years ago.
Is the blank stare about what does the itialism mean, or is the blank stare
about what do the letters stand in it stand for?
I'll bet there are a bunch of us who write about network topologies know,
without too much thought, what tcp/ip stands for.
John Posada
Goober Writer
| I'll bet there are a bunch of us who write about
| network topologies know,
| without too much thought, what tcp/ip stands for.
Two Computers Participating In Pontification?
;)
=====
Goober Writer
(because life is too short to be inept)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Peter
Goober Writer wrote:
|>I'll bet there are a bunch of us who write about
|>network topologies know,
|>without too much thought, what tcp/ip stands for.
|
|
| Two Computers Participating In Pontification?
|
| ;)
|
This website is a classic example of internationalization failure.
http://tinyurl.com/e9yp
--
Peter
Janice Gelb
Tom Murrell <tmur...@yahoo.com> wrote:
|
| --- Janice Gelb <janic...@sun.com> wrote:
| > First of all, the acronyms you cite as causing reader
| > confusion are not acronyms that I think are generally
| > used in technical documentation. I mainly see them in
| > email or list posts. I believe most people reading this
| > type of email or message accept that people are striving
| > for brevity and one soon gets used to the common acronyms.
|
|
| Oh, and I recommend the following example to those who think
| "everybody knows what this acronym means." Go to
| http://acronymfinder.com and enter any common acronym and
| see how many different possible answers you get for it.
| Even FTP has multiple possible meanings. The writer's
| meaning has to be garnered from context and an appropriate
| background knowledge, but then that can trip the reader up,
| too.
|
No, in a case where there are multiple possible meanings,
the writer's meaning should be garnered from the inclusion
of the spelled-out meaning of the acronym the first time it's
used, not from context!
|
| > Regarding technical documentation, our rule is that acronyms
| > (except *exceedingly* common ones like CPU) should be written
| > out on first usage.(etc.)
|
| I suspect most of us have similar rules. I found that if I define
| an acronym someplace in the document and don't use it again for
| several pages, the reader has forgotten what it is or meant. I've
| already commented on how I see readers using glossaries and indices.
| I consider it a rule of thumb that if people only turn to the
| documentation in desperation, they are really in deep doo-doo
| when they turn to the back of the book (or the front) to look
| something up.
|
If you are writing to the correct audience level, only
readers at the lower end of the experience scale should
have to be doing this, and this activity is in place of
frustrating the majority of your readers who either are
already familiar with the initialism or who will quickly
grasp it. You *are* using these in accordance with your
audience level, right?
| > These rules should avoid reader confusion, and enable
| > writers to use acronyms common to their industry and
| > technology area.
|
| Obviously, I am challenging these assumptions. If they avoided
| confusion, we wouldn't have SMEs showing up in meetings asking
| "What does DASD mean again?" or whatever.
|
The statement above was that the rules I noted for use
of initialisms in technical documentation would avoid
reader confusion. I agree that if your SMEs keep forgetting
what an initialism stands for, it's probably not one that
you want to include in your documentation.
|
| I will concede that initialisms CAN improve readability. However,
| my basic position remains that writers use them as shortcuts to
| their writing rather than as aids to their readers. What I'm
| suggesting is that you continue to write them, but make a pass
| through your document and remove about 75% of them and see if
| communication doesn't actually improve.
|
See whether communication improves for whom? If you're writing
for an advanced audience familiar with the field, you probably
don't want to remove 75% of the occurrences. If the initialism
is in place of a long phrase and is used throughout the book,
then you also probably don't want to delete them.
I could get behind a statement that said "Writers should be
aware that many people in the industry overuse initialisms
and acronyms and assess their own use accordingly." But
you seem to be going a bit overboard in your repeated statements
that writers nearly always use them as incomprehensible shortcuts
and therefore we should hardly ever use them.
-- Janice
Goober Writer
Did I slip through yet another trans-dimensional
portal or something?
--- Peter <pnew...@optonline.net> wrote:
| Goober Writer wrote:
| >>I'll bet there are a bunch of us who write about
| >>network topologies know,
| >>without too much thought, what tcp/ip stands for.
| >
| >
| > Two Computers Participating In Pontification?
| >
| > ;)
| >
|
|
| This website is a classic example of
| internationalization failure.
| http://tinyurl.com/e9yp
=====
Goober Writer
(because life is too short to be inept)
__________________________________
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