[FRIAM] Acronyms

[Frank Wimberly]

Three Mile Island, of course.

On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 9:23 AM Barry MacKichan <
barry.mackichan at mackichan.com> wrote:

> TMI
>
> On 25 Jan 2021, at 18:43, Steve Smith wrote:
>
> Nick -
>
> I think it *can* be the thing you call out, but I encounter it in so many
> contexts where that explanation doesn't really fit.   Sometimes I think it
> is entirely unconscious shortcutting.   On this list, for example, I use
> LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) because I believe that *all* Santa
> Fe/NM folks know what it is an acronym for and *many* non SFe (Santa Fe) NM
> (New Mexico) folks know it *by now*.   Similarly I find SFI an acceptable
> contraction in this context.
>
> On the technical side, the shortcut/contraction/acronym is often the
> primary/preferred reference.   Even if you might not *know* that DNA is *deoxyribonucleic
> acid* or ATP is *adenosine triphosphate*... or that the YMCA is the *young
> men's christian association*, for example, you know the signified by that
> signifier, and in fact you *won't* know what those contractions are *for*
> unless you are in fact using them in some insider/technical sense.
>
> I know people who work within a large  but somewhat insular community
> whose acronyms are myriad and they are truly NOT trying to be
> exclusionary.   I have a number of friends who are either social workers or
> have studied in the field or have friends/families with mental illness so I
> hear the acronym DSM and I can tell it is being used in a very "insider"
> way.   I know little of the details, but I've gathered that "DSM II"
> somehow connotes both "modern" and "not-really-modern" psychiatric models,
> but I think even if I do the GoogleFu to learn the first level of details,
> I would not be much less puzzled by knowing, for example:
>
> DSM-I and DSM-II
>
> In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) published the DSM-I,
> an adaptation of a classification system developed by the armed forces
> during WW2. It was designed for use by doctors and other treatment
> providers.
>
> The DSM-I was the first of its kind, but experts agreed that it still
> needed work. The DSM-II, released in 1968, attempted to incorporate the
> psychiatric knowledge of the day. It was heavily influenced by
> psychoanalytic concepts that were prominent at that time.
>
> I think that both Glen and maybe Frank have tossed DSM or even DSM II into
> the conversation here without any more explication than I get at cocktail
> parties and it lands just as dead for me, but not offensive here as there
> (until I get my GoogleGoggles flashing Wikipedia/Wiktionary in my
> peripheral vision with automatic explication).  It even seems like a good
> feature for Alexa/Siri/HeyGoogle to listen continuously and recognize
> acronyms and offer ordered-by-likelihood-from-context explications in your
> ear (or in the room if you want to shame the acronymster acrimoniously).
>
> I understand that many are "lazy typists" who find it patently painful
> (emotionally if not physically) to type anything out.   And *too many
> people* (IMO ... in my opinion) do too much of their correspondence on a TS
> (tiny screen) which requires them to hunt-peck with one finger (maybe two
> thumbs) without touch feedback and without the benefit of QWERTY knowledge
> built into their Neural Net neurons.
>
> I'm assuming Frank's OP (original post) was in response to both some
> specific TLA (three letter acronym) used recently or the accrued irritation
> of having to look up jargon ( especially TLAs and MLAs (multi letter
> acronyms)) just to figure out a conversation he is *otherwise* informed
> enough on to follow.   Or both.  Or maybe he's just taking out his
> frustration with his daughter here where it's "safe" <grin>.
>
> BTW (by the way) and FWIW (for what it's worth) I think I'd be game for
> one of Glen's experiments, even if the constraints offered somehow cramped
> *my* style (e.g. 20 line limit on posts, no markup-like formatting like
> *bold* or EMPHASIS or _underscore_ HTML (even formatting like *bold* or
> *italics*).   or even his extremal suggestion of requiring "peer review"
> by 3 others before submitting (I'd probably become rather mute over that
> one) WTFOMFGROFLMAOGMWAS!
>
> - Steve
>
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-- 
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Research:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
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