Question

Lennart Sorensen lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org
Sat Feb 28 18:20:15 UTC 2004


On Sat, Feb 28, 2004 at 10:08:35AM -0500, Paul King wrote:
> That's not really the point. Several years ago, I used to give talks on 'net 
> use in courses, and sure, I explained 'net acronyms.
> 
> I strongly disagree with your implication that 'net acronyms were ever any part 
> of a "subculture". 
> 
> Acronyms, especially those germaine to a particular area or technology, are and 
> have been useful to ease the reading of messages on Internet newsgroups or on 
> mailing lists. That is, it rose out of conveniance. Newcomers were often 
> encouraged to read a FAQ to become familiar with the norms of the group and 
> with the acronyms. I maintain a FAQ for the newsgroup sci.bio.food-science 
> where I devote an entire section to scientific and Internet acronyms.
> 
> Acronyms are meant to clarify. That is, they are meant to ease the reading of 
> messages in the group for those who have dealt much with the topic at hand. If, 
> for example I want to talk about polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, it would 
> save a lot of typing (and a lot of eyestrain on the part of the reader) to 
> simply abbreviate it as PAGE. PAGE might be used several times in the same 
> sentence. Anyone interested in PAGE or what it is used for will immediately 
> recognise the acronym. If they don't, they can read the FAQ and at least see 
> what it stands for. There are many acceptable uses for Internet acronyms, as 
> well as smilies and so on. I use them all the time. 
> 
> Over-use of acronyms obscure messages. Unless someone wish to post a FAQ to 
> interpret their own jargon, they are essentialy writing messages to themselves.

Hmm, and here I thought they were used to shorten messages so the usenet
servers running 9600 bps modems wouldn't have so much data to transfer.
:)

Lennart Sorensen
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