What do those initials mean?

**Phil** · 17th August 11, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by kc8ufv

Ah, that one could get confusing, because PC could also be Practice Chanter, especially if you are in the music section. Must remember acronyms and initialisms are context sensitive.

or "politically correct" ....

**English Bloke** · 17th August 11, 01:29 AM

I'm with you Father Bill... English is a beautiful and expressive language all it's forms (British, North American, Australian and others) I don't think we should be chopping it up into 'txtspk'. That's only my opinion of course.

**English Bloke** · 17th August 11, 01:29 AM

Personal Computer?

**LitTrog** · 17th August 11, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by Dale Seago

Depends on whether they're solar or lunar, I s'pose.

In this case, I must cast my vote with the Von Trapp kids. (Solar, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu.)

**madmacs** · 17th August 11, 04:49 AM

Originally Posted by Dale Seago

Depends on whether they're solar or lunar, I s'pose.

**Lyle1** · 17th August 11, 07:05 AM

The use of initials or acronyms can be confusing, but when in doubt I usually open another browser and do a Google search.

What is more confusing is when someone references an earlier post in a thread by using the earlier poster's given or nickname rather than his XMTS avatar. If you are looking for "Frank" or "George" and the post is listed under "Scottish Lord"...

**Chas** · 17th August 11, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by Nighthawk

Ya know... terrible punctuation, spelling, and book-long run-on sentences have been one of my pet peeves for a long time. Is it really that difficult to use grade school grammar? And all the acronyms... Is it really so time consuming to type out "too" instead of using the number 2?

I agree 100%.

We only have the written word.

If we are lucky; if we are very, very lucky, we get to meet other XMarkers once or twice a year. Some of us will never meet another XMarker in our whole lives.

So all we have is the written word. We all learned it in school, so why are we so quick to forget it? I think we should all up our game. Stop relying on smilies and use a spell checker.

Regards

Chas

**piperdbh** · 17th August 11, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chas

So all we have is the written word. We all learned it in school, so why are we so quick to forget it?

I agree with what you've said, but there's a little fly in the ointment here. As a high school teacher (14-18-year-old students) I can assure that they do not all learn it in school. Some memorize things just until the test is over, some don't care one way or the other, and some learn just the minimum to get by. Still others have little to no aptitude for written language. That being said, we can still try to use the language, and not abuse it. I use the same argument to try to get my students to broaden their vocabularies, especially regarding descriptors. "Cool", "lame", and "sucks" are just about the limit of their describing capability.

Meanwhile, Father Bill was asking about initials...
I had an English literature teacher in high school who would write instructions and messages to students using only the first letter of each word in the sentence. It was our job to figure out what they meant.