Well, I dont know about the first part of your post, but I can vouch for the last part alright !!

Guilty as charged ! NO = Normally Open, NC = Normally Closed, NVR = No Volt Release.

I hope we are seen as friendly and helpful, I do my best . Noel.

Rather than a list, just spell it out (with abbreviation in brackets) first time you use it in a post / thread.

Robert.

I can use abbreviations with the best of them but tend to use the full spelling as I am aware there are a lot of people on here who aren’t so familiar with certain terms.

My personal opinion is that certain people use abbreviations to make themselves feel important, I have Googled abbreviations in the past but it’s certainly an annoyance.

Tony

No one has mentioned acronyms yet. They fall into the same category as abbreviation: To keep those in the know inside the “loop”, those not outside.

At work, a very large engineering firm, acronyms and abbreviations were both universal and department specific. They were hated but used. Eventually the company, as Andy suggests, made and published a glossary. Instantly it was a failure. It could not keep up with the invention of new acronyms and abbreviations.

JA

Edit – written before Richard’s reply.

Oooooh I feel a pedancy attack coming on……  🙂  Surely we are talking about acronyms as opposed to abbreviations.

TLA – an acronym –  is only one specific form of an abbreviation using initial letters

Cresc’ – an abbreviation

Or am I talking Merde ? 🙂

Anyway I LOVE TLA’s and FLA’s

Normally the first time a FLA ( Four Letter Acronym ) is used, the full text ‘should’ appear bracketed following the TLA ( Three Letter Acronym ). We can then use the appropriate TLA or FLA anywhere in that text without repeating the full definition of the said TLA. That is the protocol AFAIK ( As Far As I Know ). 🙂

Usually Simples……

Do abbreviations matter as long as they are understood by the reader? Julie Ann, I see you have posted  here but do I know you or have we met? you look familiar. You made a comment about the club at Cambridge of which I am Chairman but no one can remember you as having visited, then some of the photo’s you have posted look like the workshop and tooling of member or former member Andrew Johnson.

Sorry I hope that I have not hijacked this post in any way, I was only responding to this post but took the opportunity to ask the question of Julie Ann as she had replied, if so I will try and remove the non related content and post it elsewhere.

One has to assume that when something is spelt out in full, such as “one dimensional, non-viscous, incompressible flow”, it will be understood by the knowledgeable reader. However as soon as one starts to used abbreviations/acronyms, such as “CFD”, the understanding is limited and private even when initially defined. Technical reports, like forum postings, are skimmed through with only the conclusions and recommendations being read.

I note that Richard is a chief engineer. We would use acronyms to control and keep such persons at bay.

JA

George’s post reminds me of the reputed occurrence on Wikipedia in which a famous person kept correcting the errors in his biography only to have some TWAT of a fan change it back to what they thought the details were, even when the person explained why they knew better. Sorry I haven’t expanded TWAT because when used as an insult everyone knows what you mean without knowing what the acronym stands for. Same for CMOS. Nobody has cared what it stands for since the day after it was invented.

Anyway I seem to be a Human 0.5 not Human 2.0 as my way of engaging in the forum is by reading it on a computer not by telepathy. Because I am using a computer instead of whinging that I didn’t understand ‘CFD’ used above I just Googled it. Just Google it , GOOGLE IT, ‘effing use Google!

What is much more annoying to me is the people who post questions without having made the slightest effort to research the topic or measure something properly or maybe describe the problem with barely 50% of the relevant information.

I do not have shares in Google. Other search engines are available. 🙂