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Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

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Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#41

Post by koreth1 »

forgotusername6 wrote: post #40
koreth1 wrote: post #37

I think context and audience matter a lot. The post seems to mostly be talking about acronyms in the context of writing that's aimed at a public audience, but a lot of acronym use is aimed at a much more targeted audience. For example, I work on a product that pulls data about plant species from various data sources. I'm not about to type "Global Registry of Introduced and Invasive Species" or "Global Biodiversity In…

The feeling of being an outsider because you don't know the acronym is just as real in non-public settings. The new guy on the team for example. There's a real feeling that you should already know it, even if it's the first time you've heard the other person say it. The first time you heard GBIF, did you know what it meant? How did you feel when you heard it?

Honestly? I looked it up on the glossary page of the company wiki and didn't feel much of anything about having to learn it.

At the time I didn't know what "Global Biodiversity Information Facility" referred to either, or why it was relevant to my team. Even without the acronym, I still would have had to go look it up or ask about it if someone used it with the expectation I was already familiar with it. I don't think the acronym had any significant effect on my experience of learning the concept.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#42

Post by bryanrasmussen »

thayne wrote: post #19

I agree that acronyms can be overused, especially in marketing. However, a big part of why Tech, software, computer science, etc. have a lot of acronyms is because there are a lot of new, often abstract things to name, and acronyms are an easy and straightforward way to create a reasonably unique and short name for a new thing. And I don't think anyone would really want to write out all of "hypertext transfer protoco…

>I don't think any of those terms are much better than acronyms

The Social Contract is so much better, it is pithy and you can even sort of guess your way to what it means, it has resisted change over centuries, it far out performs an acronym.

The Categorical Imperative is abstract, badly descriptive and overly intellectual, much like most of Kant. The Categorical Imperative instead of something like Essential Moral Principle or anything that sort of pointed at what was meant is really a sort of acronym in words, you need to be an expert to know what it means.

This is why the Social Contract is a phrase used by common people in many languages, and the Categorical Imperative is used by Philosophers - generally only when discussing Kant specifically.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#43

Post by OldOneEye »

thayne wrote: post #19

I agree that acronyms can be overused, especially in marketing. However, a big part of why Tech, software, computer science, etc. have a lot of acronyms is because there are a lot of new, often abstract things to name, and acronyms are an easy and straightforward way to create a reasonably unique and short name for a new thing. And I don't think anyone would really want to write out all of "hypertext transfer protoco…

Really small comment to what you wrote, but that's one of the things that make me love English over my own native language (Spanish): the way you can build and combine words to describe a complex idea, in a way that you would need a full sentence in other languages like French or Spanish.

Information density in the English language is higher than in romance languages, and that's great for work.

I vastly prefer to write documentation in English.

I, on the other hand, still prefer more indulgently verbose languages when it comes to lyricism and entertainment. There's a charm to it.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#44

Post by jibal »

koreth1 wrote: post #39
DanielVZ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! I’ll dive into this a bit more in the second section, where even technical acronyms can be considered harmful because they are learned at a surface level and then spread at meme-like speed. For instance most people don’t know that even though both CAP and ACID contain consistency, they do not refer to the same idea. In CAP it’s about linearizability, while in ACID it’s about preserving invariants.

> For instance most people don’t know that even though both CAP and ACID contain consistency, they do not refer to the same idea. But wouldn't people still be unaware of the difference in meaning if the acronyms were spelled out? The word "consistency" appears in both names, with no indication that its meaning is context-dependent. I don't think you can lay the blame for this one at the feet of the acronyms.

Right. This whole argument is ridiculous.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#45

Post by jibal »

zjp wrote: post #18

Acronyms I can handle. What I've always hated is aNz style compressions. a11y, a16z, stuff that you can't even guess at a decoding unless you know it already.

I don't have to guess because I'm smart enough to look things up.

P.S. The response is a ridiculous non sequitur -- I didn't say anything either for or against such terms, just that their meaning can be discerned.

But I would note that all of language requires all readers to be familiar with terms and their meanings. And specifically, if people aren't familiar with the notion of language-independent code then they aren't likely to understand what "internationalization" refers to, and if they are familiar with the topic then they almost certainly know what i18n means ... and the time and effort that it took to learn it is infinitesimal relative to all the other language and meanings that they have acquired.

Further, the whole argument from this person is intellectually dishonest nonsense. They claim that terms like HTTP and NASA are "at the expense of the reader", which is simply false. I and most other readers would far prefer to see these acronyms and initialisms than to have them spelled out every time. (And it would be a disaster if http were spelled out in URLs -- and it would be a disservice to the reader to spell that out.)

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#46

Post by jorisw »

sph wrote: post #35

Strange how it doesn’t mention how acronym usage is cultural. Americans and their military love acronyms, and they are very liberal in their usage compared to other languages. There are at least a couple posters here with a clear background as USMC or similar whose insightful comments on geopolitics read like a sitrep from CENTCOM and get routinely called out to expand their acronyms. American cultural affectations t…

What's a sitrep?

What's USMC?

What's CENTCOM?

What's USMNT?

I wouldn't have to ask any of this were these expanded. Abbreviations, initialisms and acronyms do nothing but to burden the reader for the sake of conveniencing the writer.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#47

Post by jorisw »

thayne wrote: post #19

I agree that acronyms can be overused, especially in marketing. However, a big part of why Tech, software, computer science, etc. have a lot of acronyms is because there are a lot of new, often abstract things to name, and acronyms are an easy and straightforward way to create a reasonably unique and short name for a new thing. And I don't think anyone would really want to write out all of "hypertext transfer protoco…

> acronyms are an easy and straightforward way to create a reasonably unique and short name for a new thing

Convenience for the writer at the expense of the reader.

Convenience is no excuse to be unclear.

These names given to a thing may last for decades. Starting out naming them ambiguously is lazy and irresponsible.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#48

Post by jorisw »

koreth1 wrote: post #37

I think context and audience matter a lot. The post seems to mostly be talking about acronyms in the context of writing that's aimed at a public audience, but a lot of acronym use is aimed at a much more targeted audience. For example, I work on a product that pulls data about plant species from various data sources. I'm not about to type "Global Registry of Introduced and Invasive Species" or "Global Biodiversity In…

> I think context and audience matter a lot.

I believe people who use a lot of (unexpanded) abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms, are lazy in their thinking about context and audience anyway.

The audience can be an assumption, especially in posterity. The context of where the message/document is read, isn't set in stone either.

Re: Acronym Fatigue Series Introduction: why I'm wary of acronyms

#49

Post by jorisw »

Valodim wrote: post #36
zjp wrote: post #18

Acronyms I can handle. What I've always hated is aNz style compressions. a11y, a16z, stuff that you can't even guess at a decoding unless you know it already.

I kind of understand for i18n, but not for most other things

What could be the possible benefit of collapsing 'internationalization' to "i18n"? Which scarce resource (time? space?) was saved, in what context?

For example, I'll take "react-internationalization" over "react-i18n" for a package name any day.

Why obscure anything unless a clear problem was solved doing it, that warrants the ambiguity?

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