People Who Love Acronyms and Abbreviations....

[MaximumLawman]

Got a letter at work from a Navy Reserve guy. He was supposed to come to a meeting at my office but was unable to make it. In the letter he writes: "I am going to be OCONUS (Outside The Continental United States) on the date of our scheduled meeting and therefore must reschedule...."

I get it...You're in the Navy and can't make the meeting. But if you're going to assume I don't know what CONUS means and then take the time to write out all the words of your acronym and place them in parenthesis, wouldn't it be better to just skip the acronym altogether? The guy uses military or occupational jargon and acronyms all the time and then writes out the meaning or explains it in his letters.

[kozmic]

Guy sounds like a PITA!

[Tom K]

It makes sense if the abbreviation is used multiple times. Articles in AvWeek (Aviation Week and Space Technology) always spells out abbreviations upon their first use. This guy may simply be accustomed to doing the same and does it as a matter of course, whether the abbreviation is repeated or not.

[Autococker07]

Originally Posted by Tom K

It makes sense if the abbreviation is used multiple times. Articles in AvWeek (Aviation Week and Space Technology) always spells out abbreviations upon their first use. This guy may simply be accustomed to doing the same and does it as a matter of course, whether the abbreviation is repeated or not.

Yup yup common in the military also, if you are one of the folks who write tech manuals, directives, etc.... I know it must be annoying, but many military folks get stuck in the acronym world and have a tough time realizing that no one else is LOL....

[Double-O-Dave]

Originally Posted by Tom K

It makes sense if the abbreviation is used multiple times. Articles in AvWeek (Aviation Week and Space Technology) always spells out abbreviations upon their first use. This guy may simply be accustomed to doing the same and does it as a matter of course, whether the abbreviation is repeated or not.

He was close, the standard you are supposed to use in professional and technical writing, be it a letter, memo, or report is to provide the phrase in its entirity, followed by the accronym in ALL CAPS. Thus, the proper format would have been:

Outside the Continental United States (OCONUS)

We've been hiring more vets at my agency lately, and quite a few of them are having problems adjusting to the work (yes, even the federal govenment who is very acronym heavy) because of their use of acronmyms, as well as military slang. I've had to have quite a few off-line chats with their managers helping them understand how best to deal with this.

What concerns me are the candidates that interview, and would possibly be good employees, but fail to get a hiring recommendation based on their use of slang/acronyms during the interview. This is usually because the manager wasn't experienced enough, or smart enough to gauge if he/she could work with the candidate to fix this once they're on the job.


Regards,

Dave

[Bekeart]

Language that is acceptable in rank may not be an asset when dealing with civilians.

Many years ago I was part of a search committee looking to hire a broadcast engineer.

One applicant had multiple pages of military language, jargon, and descriptions.
Several paragraphs related to the construction of a short wave antenna system
in Germany for communications to the United States.

Read those paragraphs several times and could not figure out if:
He designed it. / He did the construction. / He Supervised the construction. / He just watched / ??

At our first meeting to evaluate and rank the applicants I held up his resume and commented -
"I have certification as Professional Broadcast Engineer and I don't understand most of this.
Do we want him writing memos?" Unanimous rejection!

Bekeart

[MaximumLawman]

It makes sense if the abbreviation is used multiple times. Articles in AvWeek (Aviation Week and Space Technology) always spells out abbreviations upon their first use. This guy may simply be accustomed to doing the same and does it as a matter of course, whether the abbreviation is repeated or not.

...I think he just thought I'd be impressed that he was "OCONUS". (And he WAS a PITA).....I told him "Gene, I was glad you spelled out what OCONUS meant...For a minute we thought you were Only Concerned with Operating Underwater in Submarines!"

[NCTexan]

Here are just a few used by the Navy.

Used to blow my limited Marine Corps mind when trying to read a Naval communication.

As bad as these are to read... some of the folks even used them in their "Navy speak".

COMNAVAIRPAC Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet
COMNAVSUBGRU Commander, Submarine Group
COMNAVSURFPAC Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet
COMOPTEVFOR Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force
COMPASS Common Operational Modeling, Planning, and Simulation Strategy
COMSEVETHFLT Commander, Seventh Fleet
COMSIXTHFLT Commander, Sixth Fleet
NAVCOMMSTA Naval Communications Station
NAVCOMTELCOM Naval Computer and Telecommunications Command
NAVMACS Naval Modular Automated Communications System
NAVRADSTA Naval Radio Station

[2152hq]

OMG had me struggling for quite a while.

[shouldazagged]

That jargon is just FUBB.

[ditrina]

"We've been hiring more vets at my agency lately, and quite a few of them are having problems adjusting to the work (yes, even the federal govenment who is very acronym heavy) because of their use of acronmyms, as well as military slang. I've had to have quite a few off-line chats with their managers helping them understand how best to deal with this."


My favorite is.. ( ME ) " Hello may I speak to Mr. Smith?

( Them..) Mr. Smith? ROGER THAT!!

[pineappleshooter]

Originally Posted by NCTexan

Here are just a few used by the Navy.

Used to blow my limited Marine Corps mind when trying to read a Naval communication.

As bad as these are to read... some of the folks even used them in their "Navy speak".

COMNAVAIRPAC Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet
COMNAVSUBGRU Commander, Submarine Group
COMNAVSURFPAC Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet
COMOPTEVFOR Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force
COMPASS Common Operational Modeling, Planning, and Simulation Strategy
COMSEVETHFLT Commander, Seventh Fleet
COMSIXTHFLT Commander, Sixth Fleet
NAVCOMMSTA Naval Communications Station
NAVCOMTELCOM Naval Computer and Telecommunications Command
NAVMACS Naval Modular Automated Communications System
NAVRADSTA Naval Radio Station

My two favorites are:

NSTCP - Naval Submarine Training Center, Pacific - pronounced nasty pac and from WWII

Commander, Barrier Force Atlantic - yep you guessed it - BARFLANT!

[sasu]

PCMCIA - People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

[Nframecollector]

Sounds like it came from a ***!

[Aticus]

I used to work in the telecommunications industry and, like most industries, we had our own language. We called it telephonese. We had out own acronyms, abbreviations, and slang. Most of us were carefull when speaking to none telephone people to not use telephonese.

I think some people use these industry specific terms to impress the listener that the speaker knows something the listener doesn't.

JMHO

[DR505]

One of my first exposures to acronyms in the Navy (which itself is an acronym for Never Again Volunteer Yourself) was at basic water survival training. At poolside I was handed an aviation helmet with the word BOHICA* written on it for the training. Boy, that must have been prophetic!

* Bend Over, Here It Comes Again

[LTC]

SNAFU.

LTC

[BearBio]

I have to use acronyms all the time. The rules are:
1. You must use the term at least 3 times.
2. You spell out the term first, followed by the acronym. Such as four letter acronym (FLA) or three letter acronym (TLA).

Sounds like your writer is pretty inexperienced and maybe a bit pretentious.

[Tom K]

Originally Posted by DR505

One of my first exposures to acronyms in the Navy (which itself is an acronym for Never Again Volunteer Yourself) was at basic water survival training. At poolside I was handed an aviation helmet with the word BOHICA* written on it for the training. Boy, that must have been prophetic!

* Bend Over, Here It Comes Again

When I graduated from college in 1980 I went to work for Rockwell International, at the sign of the BOHICA:



Look at it with that in mind....

[Silver Dollar]

The ones I loved the best were SNAFU, TARFU and *****. You use those when you don't want some people to know what you mean.

[LouisianaJoe]

ROFLMAO

[vigil617]

In the Coast Guard, a bit of graffiti scribbled by p.o.'d (usually junior) members was "FTG". You can translate it easily, of course.

When our ship arrived in GITMO for the first operational readiness evaluation I had ever experienced, which is performed by the Navy, the group of evaluators met us at the pier. Every one of them was wearing a blue ball cap with the letters "FTG" above the visor.

I looked at my buddies on the bridge and said, "Oh Lord, we are in for it now."

Turns out we were to be evaluated by the Fleet Training Group.

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Law is like that. We file Rule 56 Motions or request Brady material or file for a Touchet hearing. Yesterday a young DA tried to impress me and made mention of his Menendez notice he had filed. I looked back at him and told him it was no good as I had filed my Rodriguez objection. He turned white and ran off to find out what a Rodriguez objection was and the judge looked at me and told me I was going to hell

[vigil617]

Originally Posted by CAJUNLAWYER

Law is like that. We file Rule 56 Motions or request Brady material or file for a Touchet hearing. Yesterday a young DA tried to impress me and made mention of his Mendez notice he had filed. I looked back at him and told him it was no good as I had filed my Rodriguez objection. He turned white and ran off to find out what a Rodriguez objection was and the judge looked at me and told me I was going to hell

A Touchet hearing has got to be a Louisiana thing!

Either that, or maybe it's what Caj uses when that young DA returns to court to object about the Rodriguez objection, and the judge tells him there's no such, and Caj turns to the DA and says "Touchet."

[DR505]

I remember talking with two reps from other organizations...the initials "CI" were mentioned. Each thought a different topic was being raised; Counterintelligence, Criminal Investigator, or Confidential Informant. Things were confused for a bit until that got squared away.

Another time I was participating in an exercise when one of the guys in Unified Command said, "Activate the CAT!" I asked why would we need the Counter Assault Team for this? He laughed and said it was the Crisis Action Team...acronyms can be a very bad thing.

[Old Corp]

A SURE sign of a gathering of new, rookie cops is conversations using '10 codes' and radio signal references. It's funny - they quit after a few years when the exhaustion sets in.

[shouldazagged]

Originally Posted by CAJUNLAWYER

Yesterday a young DA tried to impress me and made mention of his Menendez notice he had filed. I looked back at him and told him it was no good as I had filed my Rodriguez objection. He turned white and ran off to find out what a Rodriguez objection was and the judge looked at me and told me I was going to hell

I'd say His Honor had it right. See you there.

[USAFret]

While in the military back in the 80's I worked some with NASA. Ran into a problem with the acronym 'LOS' since in the military it meant 'Line of Sight', i.e. you could communicate. But in NASA, it meant 'Loss of Signal' i.e. you couldn't communicate! That kind of mismatch can create problems when you are trying to work out joint communication schedules.

[Fishslayer]

I chuckle whenever I see a Toyota truck with the "Toyota Racing Development" badges on it.

I know what we would have called a piece of equipment with model "AN/TRD-4x4" on it...

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

At least in the Navy, in later years, one could consult his DICNAVAB, a civilian publication which was probably out of date six months before it was published.

[cowart]

Originally Posted by NCTexan

COMNAVAIRPAC Commander, Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet

On the "Mash" TV show, the characters once made reference to their NINCOMPAC

[THE PILGRIM]

Originally Posted by MaximumLawman

Got a letter at work from a Navy Reserve guy. He was supposed to come to a meeting at my office but was unable to make it. In the letter he writes: "I am going to be OCONUS (Outside The Continental United States) on the date of our scheduled meeting and therefore must reschedule...."

I get it...You're in the Navy and can't make the meeting. But if you're going to assume I don't know what CONUS means and then take the time to write out all the words of your acronym and place them in parenthesis, wouldn't it be better to just skip the acronym altogether? The guy uses military or occupational jargon and acronyms all the time and then writes out the meaning or explains it in his letters.

I been to the PI, the ZI, the DI and the UP. Have also been to the OCONUS but we didn't 't call It that. But now I just here in the land of the big BX.

[Double-O-Dave]

Originally Posted by MaximumLawman

...I think he just thought I'd be impressed that he was "OCONUS". (And he WAS a PITA)

While in the Army we used to be "regularly visited" by a Captain (O-3) that was totally useless, and a real danger to himself and others. How he thought himself qualified even remotely in the health and medical field - he was Supply - is beyond me. One day, my boss entered the coffee room and didn't realize the Captain was standing behind him. My boss said: "Well, has ol' PITA been by yet?" about the same time he realized he had put his foot in his mouth, I said: "Yes, Sergeant, he's right behind you." Both of them gave me a horrified look, until I said: "Uh, sir, you do realize that PITA = Primary Instructor/Trainer/Adviser, don't you?" I had a good boss, and he let me slide on the duty roster for a while as payment for bailing him out with ol' PITA.

Regards,

Dave