# Contextual acronyms should be fine
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [October 8, 2023, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272 "2023-10-08T14:54:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/1 "2023-10-08T14:54:52Z")
The onus should be on the reader when sufficient contextual clues are given. Or when something is a term of art in the relevant forum.
This is bogus moderation, @What_Exit :
> [@Podiumgate (Arkansas) - how big a deal is this?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/podiumgate-arkansas-how-big-a-deal-is-this/991245/2):
>
> Moderating: When come back, bring less acronyms. TPM=apparently Talking Point Menu site. SHS = Sarah Huckabee Sanders from context FOIA = Freedom of Information Act after Googling and context. BFF= I assume Best Friends Forever? Odd in this context. GOP= pretty common. MSM=??? So please translate or I will close this thread. Avoid this many obscure acronyms in the future.
SHS and TPM are both screamingly obvious just from contextual clues in the OP. One was the linked site (“TPM” is its actual name in its masthead, and it’s Memo, not Menu), the other was already spelled out before the acronym was used.
FOIA, MSM and GOP should all be terms of art in the P&E forum, and should _not_ need explaining there. _Maybe_ if someone dropped them in MPSIMS, there’d be an argument to be made. _Maybe_.
And BFF is not remotely obscure. That’s just ridiculous. What’s next, will whoever complained about this need LOL spelled out, too? If TPM needs spelling out, surely CNN and BBC need expansion when they’re mentioned?
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/2 "2023-10-08T14:59:54Z")
You really think 6 in one OP isn’t excessive?
This is a board that prides itself on writing. Not on acronyms.
And no, FOIA & MSM are far from common.
As to BFF, clearly you didn’t read what I wrote: “_BFF= I assume Best Friends Forever? Odd in this context._” So yes, BFF is not obscure, but seemed a little weird and open to question in that **O** pening **P** ost.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/3 "2023-10-08T15:02:27Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> You really think 6 in one OP isn’t excessive?
Not when it’s as long an OP as that, and not when half of them are common terms of art in political discussions, no.
If it had been a one paragraph post, and half of it was acronyms, you’d have a case. As it is, there wasn’t a good reason for that moderation - especially when the only really obscure **two of the 6 were expanded on in the post itself**.
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> And no, FOIA & MSM are far from common.
I knew exactly what they were, and I’m hardly a P&E junkie. MSM is such a common shibboleth of the Right, and FOIA requests are a common topic.
Search for either here and you’ll find pages and pages of uses where they’re not expanded (MSM hardly ever is, although sometimes it’s the very irritating “MSM Media”, FOIA is expanded maybe 1 in 5 times)
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> So yes, BFF is not obscure, but seemed a little weird and open to question in that **O** pening **P** ost.
Did you _read_ the actual OP? Its relevance was 100% obvious. SHS was accused of paying for her _ **bestie** _ to go to Paris with her with government funds. _How_ is BFF not relevant there?
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/4 "2023-10-08T15:22:05Z")
This will always be subjective. I had never heard of TPM, and I thought that one could have been explained. In the sentence “Josh Marshall over at TPM posted this story” it’s not immediately clear what _category_ of thing TPM is. If you haven’t heard of it, It’s not unambiguously a news/opinion website, since someone might write (say) “John Marshall over at ACLU”.
Did I figure it out from context? Sure, but it could have been written better. I think the OP agreed.
Ironically, I think it would have been less confusing just to write
“Josh Marshall posted this story”
The anyone who was interested to know where it was posted would obviously look at the included link.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/5 "2023-10-08T15:24:45Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> In the sentence “Josh Marshall over at TPM posted this story” it’s not immediately clear what _category_ of thing TPM is.
There was a hefty clue immediately adjacent to it…
> [@Podiumgate (Arkansas) - how big a deal is this?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/podiumgate-arkansas-how-big-a-deal-is-this/991245/1):
>
> Josh Marshall over at **TPM** posted this story a couple days ago about something that may or may not be a brewing scandal down in Arkansas.
>
> [https:// **talkingpointsmemo**.com/edblog/lets-talk-about-podiumgate](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/lets-talk-about-podiumgate)
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> If you haven’t heard of it,
That’s not a valid argument - do people have to explain when they quote CNN? Breitbart? OANN? Fox? PBS? It’s P&E, should there be a pre-approved list of sites that don’t need explaining?
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/6 "2023-10-08T15:25:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> There was a hefty clue immediately adjacent to it…
Sure, and I followed the clue.
But you’re attacking a straw man to say that it’s not indecipherable.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/7 "2023-10-08T15:28:01Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> You really think 6 in one OP isn’t excessive?
How many is irrelevant, in my view. It’s whether they are either common, of which four were, or an abbreviation of something already in the post\* (of which one was). Only TPM was one I didn’t know, and I disagree with the OP of this thread that it is anything like as common as CNN or BBC. What I got from context was that it was probably some kind of commentary website.
So while I don’t agree that the Mod Note was bogus, I do think it was not necessary, or it could have been much milder to compass the two usages that were either not familiar or not good form.
\*For SHS the preferred method would have been to add the initialism in parentheses to the first use of the name, like this: Sarah Huckabee Sanders (SHS) blah blah blah. The OP in the other thread could easily have gone back and added that when they realized they were going to use the initialism later in the thread. That would have been a considerate thing to do, but not absolutely necessary for most people.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/8 "2023-10-08T15:28:31Z")
I didn’t say it’s “not indecipherable”, I did say the onus shouldn’t be on the OP to do the deciphering. A simple “What’s TPM? Not clicking links to sites I don’t know.” posted in the thread would have sorted it out.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/9 "2023-10-08T15:29:06Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> That’s not a valid argument
Of course it is. It’s akin to the “reasonable person” standard. In context, what proportion of readers are likely to understand what you’re writing? I was just giving myself as a data point - I’m not a political expert, but I read a moderate amount of US politics and SDMB threads and live here, and I’ve never heard of TPM.
For ease of communication, if half your readers (in a given context) probably haven’t heard of something, it’s a lot less work for 1 writer to clarify it than for 500 readers to each have to decipher it.
And context will always be critical. In a thread that’s clearly about some advanced technical subject matter, it’s reasonable for a poster to assume basic technical knowledge, and if someone without that knowledge wants to participate, the burden is on them to learn the basic terminology.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/10 "2023-10-08T15:30:24Z")
The onus, on someone trying to communicate something, is on the communicator to be clear. Why is it too much trouble for the poster to spell out something the first time it’s used, but not for a reader to ask what the hell it is?
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/11 "2023-10-08T15:35:35Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> I’ve never heard of TPM.
That’s not how “the reasonable person” standard works - and it’s not like TPM isn’t [a common reference in P&E](https://boards.straightdope.com/search?q=talkingpointsmemo%20%23politics-elections)
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/12 "2023-10-08T15:37:27Z")
**Actually, that standard does not matter.**
**It needs to be common knowledge, not just for P&E.**
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/13 "2023-10-08T15:37:38Z")
Just for the record, as the OP (original poster) of the thread in question, I have no problem with the moderation. As I admitted in a later post, I _did_ overdo it with the TLAs (three letter acronyms).
Talking Points Memo _used_ to display a preview when linking articles (which might have made clear what TPM was), but something changed in the last year or so and links don’t generate a preview anymore.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/14 "2023-10-08T15:37:39Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> The onus, on someone trying to communicate something, is on the communicator to be clear.
They were clear to me.
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> Why is it too much trouble for the poster to spell out something the first time it’s used
For the only obscure ones, they did (via link or initial usage).
Yes, the parenthetical first use of acronyms is a print standard. This is not a formal venue.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/15 "2023-10-08T15:38:18Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> They were clear to me.
Doesn’t matter. You are you, you are not a casual reader who decided to read the thread.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/16 "2023-10-08T15:38:54Z")
Mod was fine, there were too many acronyms.
Use the long form first and the abbreviate afterwards and don’t sprinkle them liberally when they don’t add anything or potentially confuse those who are not familiar with them.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/17 "2023-10-08T15:39:41Z")
> [@Shoeless](#):
>
> Just for the record, as the OP (original poster) of the thread in question, I have no problem with the moderation.
It’s not just about you, though - WE? has indicated their personal standard of obscurity is going to be the yardstick going forward, I assume in all forums they moderate, and while I don’t care about P&E so much, I’d hate for that to be the standard in their forums I do hang out more in.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/18 "2023-10-08T15:40:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> That’s not how “the reasonable person” standard works - and it’s not like TPM isn’t [a common reference in P&E](https://boards.straightdope.com/search?q=talkingpointsmemo%20%23politics-elections)
As I say, I was giving myself only as a data point, not setting myself up as the arbiter of the reasonable man. I’m open to being convinced that I’m actually in a tiny minority who don’t know what TPM is.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/19 "2023-10-08T15:40:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> That’s not how “the reasonable person” standard works - and it’s not like TPM isn’t [a common reference in P&E](https://boards.straightdope.com/search?q=talkingpointsmemo%20%23politics-elections)
Never heard of it either.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/contextual-acronyms-should-be-fine/991272/20 "2023-10-08T15:40:55Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> You are you, you are not a casual reader who decided to read the thread.
I am _very much_ a casual reader when it comes to obscure US state politics threads.
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