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Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?
3

Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

(OP)
I have always thought acronyms are an indication of American laziness (OK, maybe other countries use a lot of them too).  I thought it would be fun to see who can use the most acronyms in one coherent sentence.  I'll start:

FYI -- the PE will review that RFI ASAP.

DaveAtkins

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

The DFM team revised the PFMEA as well as redid the PPAP to reflect the current SAE standard and noted that the AMC failed to include this in the DFMEA as required by their APQP QS procedures.
 
As a side note my the Canadian Governement has a training exercise where every participant receives a Nerf Football upon commencement of the training.  The purpose of the football - to pelt any individual using an acronym while on the course.  I would have been punch drunk by the end of the above email.

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

The U.S. Navy has an official publication to keep track of its acronyms.  This document is appropriately named DICNAVAB, for "DICtionary of NAVy ABbrevieations".

There are two types of people in the world: the kind that believe that people can be categorized into one of two groups and the kind that don't.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

One of my past jobs was with a medical device manufacturer.  My first day, first meeting, I heard the following gibberish:

"How's that FDA GMP SOP coming?  You know we have to submit it to CCB by COB Friday, or we'll have to delay the DOPs too. On the lighter side we got approval for our IDE."

FDA- Food & Drug Amdinistration
GMP- Good Manufacturing Practices
SOP- Standard Operating Proceedure
CCB- Change Control Board
COB- Close of Business
DOP- Departmental Operating Procedure
IDE- Investigational Device Exemption

Ray Reynolds
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

Before I acquired my PDA, I decided to do a tad of research so I stopped at our local Staples store and picked up a first edition of Mobile Computing Magazine or some such title.  They used so many acronyms and without ever parenthetically giving a heads-up (clue)at each first occurance that I could hardly make sense of any of it, being a novice.

The editor asked for feedback so I lambasted him via e-mail for the misuse of acronyms and went so far as to call the authors of these articles inane for not giving us novices a little break and ignoring this huge potential market.  The editor responded to me but was offended by my use of "inane."  He said, "inane?  Please."  So I apologized and commented that I wonder if there really is a place for the word inane in polite engish.  The editor's main defense was that the mag is intended for high end cutting edge tekkies (my word not his).  Sorry but POOR excuse.  Even Advanced Materials and Processes and correct me if I am wrong but also Scientific American mag's usually give you a heads-up on initial use of acronyms in an article.

Does this sound like venting?  I hope so!!!

At our workplace  sometimes an NMR will result in a PMO but subsequently could require a DCR which might lead to a DCN and of course the DER and FAA will need to verify the veracity of the change(s).

NMR non-conforming material report
PMO protoype modification order
DCR design change request
DCN design change notice
DER designated engineering representative
FAA fededral areonautics admininstration

The really bad part is that I am as guilty as the next guy.  Why say, "liquid nitrogen" when you can say, "LN2" and get this quizzical looks?

Jesus is THE life,
Leonard

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

OOPS!

PDA = personal digital assistant.  My PDA is a pocket PC(personal computer).

happy acronyming...

Jesus is THE life,
Leonard

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

metman,

I like your examples.  Your use of NMR is a perfect example - in the materials world, it also means Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.  So if you don't identify it, how the f@#$%& is someone supposed to know what it is?

Regards,

Cory

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

If you can't tell from the context, then you're not part of the in-crowd, and therefore, you're not supposed to know.

It's not fundamentally different than when secretaries actually had to learn and use Gregg shorthand.  It's also not that different from Cockney rhyming slang.

Acronyms are efficient for people that know the context and it increases the cost of entry for the unwashed masses.

The good news is that we can communicate (most of the time) with outside people.

TTFN

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

Management acronyms:

The CFO needs the ROI on the PLI expenditures to calculate the EBITDA for the COO and CEO executive YER.

In case you didn't know.

EBITDA (earnings before interest and taxes, depretiation added). One of my favorites!
ROI (Return on investment)
PLI (Product liability insurance)
YER (Year end report)

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

My favourite acronym:

"www" for "World Wide Web"

As the late, great Douglas Adams ("Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" etc) once said: "It's the only acronym in common usage which actually takes longer to pronounce than the full phrase."

("www" = 9 syllables; "World Wide Web" = 3 syllables.)

His own acronym for "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" or H2G2 is a masterpiece of brevity in comparison, and lives on today in the BBC-run web site for which he was a major inspiration:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

Well if we are listing favorite acronyms, then mine has to be MST3K.

For the "outsiders"s, that's Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Ray Reynolds
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

Julian,
So you figured that out too?

("www" = 9 syllables; "World Wide Web" = 3 syllables.)

It actually kinda chaps my hide that almost everybody just continues to blabber-out the full 9 sylables (especially on TV = television)instead of why don't they just simply SAY it and get it over with quickly!  But then of course some uninitiated simpleton like myself living under rock would type out the words in the web Address line and get nowhere.

Jesus is THE life,
Leonard

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

At GM one of the engineers actually had a document of acronyms. I wish I still had it. One thing I remember is that it was a very large document!

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

EngineerDave

http://members.aol.com/carleyware/library/acronyms.htm

Here is a start (18 pages) but it misses some of the newer Quality acronyms such as PPAP, FMEA, APQP or MSA nor does it include the business acronyms such as SOP, SOB, ECR, ECN etc ...

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

Ha!  I like the of the very first examples:

"AIR     secondary air injection"

Great acronym...

Ray Reynolds
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

At MTU: (Michigan Technological University)

A typical day in the life of a Mich.Tech. Student:

Wake up in DHH, Go to the MUB for breakfast. Meet some classmates in the MY building liberary. First class is in the ME_EM, second in the EERC. Now back to the MUB for lunch and a game of bridge. Over to PChem in the ChemMet. off to the SDC for PE. Sprained ankle? Go to the PVH. Make it back in time for Thermo. in the MY again. Down to the SEM-TEM labs for a few hours. Over to DHH for dinner. After dinner time for the DOG. At 2:30am time to hike across the wild white wasteland to DHH for bed.

Key:
DHH -- Douglass Houghton Hall
MUB -- Memorial Union Building
MY -- Metallurgy/Matrerial Sciences
ME_EM -- Mechanical Engineering/Engineering Mechanics
EERC -- Electrical Energy Resources Center
SDC -- Student Development Center
PE -- Physical Education
PVH -- Portage View Hospital
SEM -- Scanning Electron Microscope
TEM -- Transmission Electron Microscope

DOG -- "home" -- the Douglas House Saloon

nick

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

To EngineerDave,

BNFL have a Guide to Acronyms and Abbreviations.  It runs to 101 pages with approximately 40-50 entries per page.

Samples include:-
COFFIN:   Construction and Factory Fatality Information
BERT:     Building Emergency Response Team
and a some nice zoological items like BAT, CATS, DOG, PANDA and PAWMARK etc..

Amazingly, it still manages to miss out my favourite - TWEC - which actually refers to a Through-Wall Electrical Connector, but which I think of as a derogatory word describing someone who uses acronyms excessively,

Regards,

Bob

RE: Who Can Use the Most Acronyms in a Sentence?

No one has mentioned TLA yet?

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