15 August 2018

Acronyms Don't Inform

Do you read BLM and think "Bureau of Land Management" not "Black Lives Matter"?

Do read about an EAA pistol and wonder why The Experimental Aircraft Association is making guns?

Are you baffled that the National Rifle Association has classes on bulk food safety?

I think it's time we stopped assuming that the reader knows what your string of letters means and a return to the "National Restaurant Association (NRA)" format might be in order.

It works for the APA.




American Psychology Association.

Yes, I see what I did there!

10 comments:

  1. Unless you're the WWF, and then you're totally hosed by the uppity panda people.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I used to painstakingly link ant annotate and generally write as if every abbreviation ad technical term needed to be explained to my readers.

    Then I decided that took too much time and that I'd rather write to smart, curious people who knew how to use search engines, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Until you repeated this reply on your blog I wondered, but now I know.

      You're calling me stupid, incurious and incapable of operating a search engine.

      Fuck you too!

      Delete
    2. I'd rather my readers not have to put down my deathless prose, pick up a computer keyboard or phone, type a term into a search engine, wait for a response, and then possibly go back to reading my crap - that is, if they aren't distracted by a squirrel or something else that comes up while they're searching.

      I have a lot of respect for you, Tam, but McThag is right, and you're out of line.

      ==Dwight Brown
      https://www.sportsfirings.com

      Delete
    3. What kind of lazy, backhanded comment is that supposed to be? Hey, look who can cut and paste! Seriously, if you intended to be offensive - score. You know, some people have other things to do than to try and figure out by context what someone means with the abbreviations they use...

      Delete
    4. "You're calling me stupid, incurious and incapable of operating a search engine."

      No, I'm not.

      But what I am calling you right now is a whiny drama queen who has to be the corpse at every wedding and the bride at every funeral.

      It ain't all about you, dude.

      And I'm not even mad at you for this. I'll still buy you a beer at 20 Tap any time you're through Indy.



      John & Dwight:
      I write my blog to entertain myself, not you. I don't owe you a got-damn thing. If you enjoy reading it, read it. If you don't, don't. Machs nichts to me. I had as much fun blogging with thirty hits a day as three thousand, without comments as with.

      Delete
    5. Honestly, my shadow never darkened the door to your blog until I saw this and went to verify the cut and paste posting. Don't care one whit about the content of your blog nor has the thought of you owing me anything ever crossed my mind. I know Angus has commented to me in conversation about you, and I assumed the two of you had a favorable respected of each other. However, your cut and paste post and subsequent response to his objection of your backhanded post has made it apparent to me that you come across as just another arrogant and self centered individual. I guess Angus' respect for you proved to be misplaced, surely not deserved of someone who would bachhandedly comment, then disparage and act like they hadn't done anything to slight the other person.

      Delete
    6. Tam, you're here at MY blog. I get to be Queen Of The Homecoming Dance at MY blog.

      Mighty gracious of you to be offensive and not be angry at me for it. The words you're looking for are, "I'm sorry." You can even cut and paste them.

      Delete
  3. That is one of the basic tenets of Technical Writing, which all too few people in technical industries actually try to learn...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was a drafter for many years. Explaining things was part of the job.

    Translating from Engineer to Tradesman, both mutually unintelligible dialects of English, was more my job than actually drawing so many times.

    ReplyDelete

You are a guest here when you comment. This is my soapbox, not yours. Be polite. Inappropriate comments will be deleted without mention. Amnesty period is expired.

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