I was always taught that you should never assume people understand abbreviations and acronyms in your writing and as far as possible to spell them out.
I absolutely detest it when I have to go off and look up abbreviations and acronyms when I’m reading. I like to read about a wide variety of subjects, but I’m not always up to date with the latest jargon, and it really detracts from a good piece of writing (or following an argument) when you have to go off and look up things. It’s worse than people using “big” words where simple words would do.
In the latest example in this thread on global warming there is talk of CAGW and the CAGW Hypothesis. I’ve just figured out AGW so now I’m puzzling what the C stands for. So off to Google I go. And the first 3 pages of results tell me it is Citizens Against Government Wastage - which is a good idea - but doesn’t seem to make sense in context. Eventually I figure it out. But it annoyed me no end.
(I’m not saying this is the worst case or even a particularly annoying case but it’s the most recent one I could find and I WILL be asked for linkies)
By entering “cagw global warming” instead of just “cagw” one finds in the fourth hit the phrase Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
I agree that acronyms should be explained, but I will note that once you get an ongoing squabble in which the same four or five posters are basically engaged in a running, multi-thread personal fight, they are going to forget that they are in a new thread and that it has been four threads and six months since the abbreviation or acronym was spelled out.
The OP will no doubt be happy to learn that if he ever has the misfortune of reading one of the training manuals I’ve written, all abbreviations are spelled out on their first appearance.
Here, though, I’m as guilty as anyone of using abbreviations without spelling them out. At least I only use ones that most people are likely to know. YMMV.
That’s how I figured it out eventually, although in retrospect it should have been easy to figure out. I just couldn’t come up with what the C stood for (cantankerous, capacitance, craptastic?)
That was always my understanding (although I am hardly an authority on style). In a document (report, letter, news article, etc.), the first use of a phrase or name that is represented by an acronym or initials should be written out in its entirety, followed by the acronym or initials in parentheses. After that, it is acceptable to use the abbreviated form.
I do this for a living, and this is correct. Also, in a multi-part (scientific) document it can be beneficial but isn’t required for terms to be re-defined on their first reappearance after several chapters, and usually in the conclusion.
Nothing constructive to add, but I thought it was mildly cruel and funny that you declined to actually tell us what CAGW stands for in your post, thereby driving me up the same wall as you
It may be writing etiquette, but not every one remembers. The last 3 years, I’ve had a string of professors who are experts in their fields, and, as such, forget that they’re talking and writing all their notes in code. One guy was especially prone to typos and the would insert accidental letters mid-acronym. :rolleyes:
When I last read Dilbert regularly his boss couldn’t tell a laptop from an Etch-a-Sketch but now he’s advanced so far he’s using those annoying UNIX self-referential names?
I was looking through a Cisco VOIP system brochure–a fucking BROCHURE, used to familiarize morons like me with their product–and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it for all the new and undefined acronyms.
It’s annoying, but on this site, it isn’t that bad. Or maybe it’s just not that bad compared to the stuff I have to read every day for work, where I have to pore over a lot of stuff that’s written for technical types/by technical types who aren’t interested in being clear to normal human beings. It’s a pain in the ass and definitely slows me down, and usually I’ll have to Google abbreviations like that several times a day.
