Initials

[Boslandew]

I thoroughly enjoy PPrune but have been out of the business for over ten years and of the Army for 35 years. I find myself shut out of a lot of the discussion because of the Endless Initials Used or, in in accordance with todays trends, SOOALOTD because of all the EIU.

Any chance that when initials are used for the first time in each thread, allowing for those in every day use, ILS, VOR, etc, their meanings could also be given.

[sargs]

TFD.......:)

[Airborne Aircrew]

NPM..... :ok:

[Tankertrashnav]

I have to agree, Boslandew. Maybe the Mods could instigate a sticky where a list of initials which crop up on Prune could gradually be formed and added to, with their current meanings.

[Army Mover]

Roflmao ... :)

[mayorofgander]

TFD...Training Flight Dispersal!!!

Later...MOG

[Roadster280]

Too many TLAs?

But where do you start? Anyone in the flying business may recognise OAT, IAS, VOR, etcetera (avoiding "etc!"), but equally in military circles, VOR means something else, and then you have all the common military (mil) ones like Tpt, ORBAT, SAR, RAS, BLR.

Then there are the country specific ones. CONUS, HMG, POTUS, HMTQ, VAT, GST.

Not forgetting the common "life" ones like ASAP, SNAFU, PDQ.

Do all these need defining too?

That's a GBFO job for someone!

[kluge]

Oh FFS ............. LOL :}

[Pontius Navigator]

IMHO many TLA are used deliberately. If someone doesn't understand then they may keep out of the discussion.

If the discussion looks interesting and you feel you may have something to contribute then either ask a knowledgable participant in a PM or in the thread.

OK M?

[Agaricus bisporus]

I read this post with incredulity.
Initials???
They are the letters representing given names in front of someone's surname. Doesn't everyone know that?

Do you mean "Acronyms", sir?

Oh dear!

[Union Jack]

I read this post with incredulity. Initials??? They are the letters representing given names in front of someone's surname. Doesn't everyone know that? Do you mean "Acronyms", sir? Oh dear!

Oh double dear, AB! Please have a look at initialism vs. abbreviation vs. acronym (http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/abbr.html) :ok:

Jack

PS (= Postscript:)) I'm with Kluge!

[barnstormer1968]

Union Jack

Any reason you left out mnemonics in your link :}

[Boslandew]

Agaricus Bisporus

Because I don't know everything, I looked up 'acronym' in my dictionary before I started. It said 'a word made up from first letters', eg radar, laser. I suppose to be strictly accurate I should have said Initialism.

Incidentally, you guys replying only with initials are kinda proving my point.

I'd be with Kluge too if I knew what he meant

[Union Jack]

Any reason you left out mnemonics in your link?

Barnstormer - Mno, mnot really ....:D

Jack

[Art Field]

Pontius Navigator.

Why should those of us who left the RAF some time ago be excluded from discussion of current subjects because we do not know the meaning of those initials ? . Yes indeed some of the subjects are only of interest to the current servers but like the ops room door positioning, for some problems, we have seen it all before and can still offer relevant thoughts if we only could understand. Anyway we like to show our interest in our successors and give them support at this trying time.

[Pontius Navigator]

Art, I didn't say you should be excluded but that some posters may wish to exclude you - subtle difference.

It is the same in other spheres too where professionals use jargon as an exclusion from mere public. Sometimes it does not work and you can either guess or know anyway.

I was once going in to the O-Club at Keflavik and here these guys talking 'discretely'. The words I heard were 'hot' and 'cold' and from that I knew who they were, what they were talking about and the details which, had I asked them outright, they would have clammed up about.

OTOH I was on a course and the course instructor kept using the TLA - MDR. I knew what this meant but the context was entirely wrong. I knew it as Median Detection Range whereas he meant Mental Dead Reckoning. Had he said Mental DR then all would have been clear.

As for using TLA in my answer, that was simply banter.

[SL Hardly-Worthitt]

This may be of some assistance......
What does YW mean? - YW Definition - Meaning of YW - InternetSlang.com (http://www.internetslang.com/YW.asp)
YW and MTFBWY
H-W:ok:

[barnstormer1968]

Union Jack.
Would you rather I had misspelled mnemonic by leaving out the 'm' at the front?
Of course, if I HAD actually got the spelling wrong in my post, then your reply may have been funny!:E

[Capt Niff Naff]

DME, FYI (Dear me, For your info):

Military Aircrew: A forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.

IE, It's a forum used by those in the definition above who use their everyday language to get to the point PDQ and to hide from those who don't know, what they are actually talking about-surely?
Capt NN
SWALK

[Shack37]

Military Aircrew: A forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.

IE, It's a forum used by those in the definition above who use their everyday language to get to the point PDQ and to hide from those who don't know, what they are actually talking about-surely?



And this would be.....TTPAAM

[gijoe]

WYSIWYG...not being able to decode the BATCO is not our problem!

TTFN

G:ok:

...and as someone said above I thought this was going to be about the point three miles from the threshold! :}

[Harley Quinn]

Lots of initials/abbreviations/acronyms = small minded insecure individuals doing their best to big up their little bit of turf.

IMHO of course

[Melchett01]

That's a GBFO job for someone!

Sounds like a job for a PPrune holding officer!

[flipflopman RB199]

Well....

I'm lost now, and I'm supposed to be young enough to know what this all means!! :bored:


Flipflopman

[Easy Street]

Try http://www.acronymfinder.com (http://www.acronymfinder.com/).

I just tested it with a few technical (ish) ones from the world of ground attack and it got 100% of them. Probably easier and more useful than a sticky thread!

[Boslandew]

Easy Street and SL Hardly-Worthit

Give the gentleman a cocoa-nut apiece. Just what I was looking for, many thanks.

I'm sure all the 'Initial' answers are very clever and witty but not a lot of point if they don't make your meaning clear. There are at least 30 definitions of 'IIRC', for a start.

Unless of course the intention is to show that you're one of the 'mob' and to exclude anyone who isn't young and cool.

Perish the thought

[Pontius Navigator]

There was one wonderful set of abbreviations - RASDA - where each letter was itself the start of an acronym, I can't remember all the meanings now but the R was RAF, A ?, S was SDOMP, D ? and A was a simple AID.

In English the whole was unintelligible as I am sure there was someone whose job it was to create a acronym and then try to match meanings to the letters.

[iRaven]

Initials...that's the start of a VRIAB, isn't it?

Oh, and the abbreviation VRIAB means "Visual Run In And Break"...

:E

[sargs]

Boslandew:

I'm sure all the 'Initial' answers are very clever and witty but not a lot of point if they don't make your meaning clear. There are at least 30 definitions of 'IIRC', for a start.

Unless of course the intention is to show that you're one of the 'mob' and to exclude anyone who isn't young and cool.




To most of us on this site the abbreviations used in the replies above are well understood, and represent 'amusing banter". If you don't get them, then you can a) simply ask or b) go and look at another site because this one is patently not for you. I don't think it's difficult.

Nobody is trying to exclude people here, but neither should we have to explain every tiny detail which is clearly understood by the majority.

TTFN

(an initialism (http://www.pprune.org/wiki/Initialism) for a colloquial valediction (http://www.pprune.org/wiki/Valediction), 'ta ta for now', based on 'ta ta (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ta_ta)', an informal 'goodbye', approximately equivalent to 'bye bye', 'see ya' (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/see_ya) or 'laters' (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/laters). The expression came to prominence in the UK (http://www.pprune.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) during the Second World War (http://www.pprune.org/wiki/Second_World_War).) Freely available on Wikipedia.......

[kharmael]

iRaven:

That's what I thought when I first read the post title, this being a mil aviation forum and all that! :8

[zoomdoof]

Worked for a rather senior member of the SAAF many moons ago who approached the use of acronyms with a similar disdain, in that he often used to reply to correspondence with a simple comment along the lines of 'SUCA'.
Very few of us knew what the heck he was on about until we attended a open conference and he stood up and said to all presenters that they should follow the SUCA rule.
Of course this then elicited the question of what the rule was and his single reply was SUCA='Stop Using Crap Acronyms'
Brought home the concerns voiced in the 1st post:O

[Boslandew]

Sargs

You may have a point and I should probably have avoided sarcasm. However, you suggest I should a) ask or b) go elsewhere. a) I was asking. b) With a little professional assistance, I (and others) would be able to follow the discussions more easily and continue to contribute as I occasionally do.

To people active in the industry the abbreviations are understood because you soak then up through daily usage. To those of us who no longer are but retain an interest, discussions rapidly become a foreign language because of the proliferation of new terms. A little help with some of the less known or newer ones was all I was suggesting. Its a question of balance.

Zoomdoof does have an excellent point too - SUCA is often very valid.