Acronyms, abbreviations and slang

[HDGoose]

Hey, I find these forums amusing and helpful. I have only owned an real RV for under 3 years. I have done maintenance on cars trucks and motorcycles for 40 years.



I had to laugh. Acronyms, abbreviations and slang mean different thing in different forums.IIt is like not only learning new things about RV, but one also has to learn a new language.



DP - Diesel pusher


PI - is a company that makes electrical parts for RVs.


DW is not "d😀mn wife".



TV meant something else totally.



And in another forums we were targeted because some one took offense to the phrase "tranny refit". (They found it via Google and did not know anything about mechanics)




So, I may be asking what something means. And apparently asking definitions may require a different thread.



Any other common abbreviations or acronyms here I should know?

[Iwritecode]

Forest River Forums - Downloads - RV Abbreviations, Acronyms & Initialisms

[wmtire]

A recent thread from a few days ago.

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...ns-184967.html

Edit: I see Iwritecode already got you headed to the right place

[HDGoose]

And DH is not double header either!

[Grapehound]

I had to laugh, I was reading a post some weeks ago and a person asked what the acronym DSI meant.

I thought it meant "direct spark ingnition," but what I really wanted to say (and didn't) was that DSI is not an acronym. People often mention an abbreviation like DSI and call it an acronym. How do you know the difference?

Well it's pretty easy. An abbreviation is usually a series of letters which use the first letter of several words to make an abbreviated version of a term or phrase. Conversely, an acronym is a series of first letters of a term which are pronounced like a word. In an acronym, we don't say the individual letters, we say a word made from those letters. So it's all about how we say the term.

For example FBI is an abbreviation for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We say the letters one at a time when we speak it, F-B-I. We don't say "feebie" as though FBI is a word.

But NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is an acronym, a set of letters which are pronounced as its own word: "Nah-Sah." We don't say, "N-A-S-A" as individual letters but as a word. Other examples are "NOAH" (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), "NATO," (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NABISCO (National Bircuit Company).

In looking through our list of "Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Initialisms, I really could not find many acronyms. Most were all either just straight abbreviations or a term not mentioned in the title of the list, slang. For example, TOAD is slang for a towed vehicle but the letters don't have a one to one correspondence to any specific phrase. It's not an abbreviation or an acronym. Fiver is slang for a fifth wheel, not an abbreviation. Tranny (for transmission) is slang. CAPS (for all capital letters) might arguably be called a different sort of abbreviation where we use just part of a word or words.

I did find just a couple acronyms in our lengthy list of "Acronyms, Abbreviations and Initialisms" such as FROG, which is the Forest River Owners Group and pronounced as its own word, like the amphibian, not as individual letters. GOB (good ol' boy) could be an acronym, as long as we say "gob" and not the letters "G-O-B." Wi-Fi is likely an acronym, as it uses the first two letters of words to make a word (not letters) that is spoken.

An initialism just suggests first letters of a phrase are used to denote the full concept.

So, if you can't say the letters out loud not as individual letters but as its own word, it's probably not an acronym.

Just my two cents.

[wmtire]

Originally Posted by Grapehound

I had to laugh, I was reading a post some weeks ago and a person asked what the acronym DSI meant.

I thought it meant "direct spark ingnition," but what I really wanted to say (and didn't) was that DSI is not an acronym. People often mention an abbreviation like DSI and call it an acronym. How do you know the difference?

Well it's pretty easy. An abbreviation is usually a series of letters which use the first letter of several words to make an abbreviated version of a term or phrase. Conversely, an acronym is a series of first letters of a term which are pronounced like a word. In an acronym, we don't say the individual letters, we say a word made from those letters. So it's all about how we say the term.

For example FBI is an abbreviation for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We say the letters one at a time when we speak it, F-B-I. We don't say "feebie" as though FBI is a word.

But NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is an acronym, a set of letters which are pronounced as its own word: "Nah-Sah." We don't say, "N-A-S-A" as individual letters but as a word. Other examples are "NOAH" (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), "NATO," (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NABISCO (National Bircuit Company).

In looking through our list of "Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Initialisms, I really could not find many acronyms. Most were all either just straight abbreviations or a term not mentioned in the title of the list, slang. For example, TOAD is slang for a towed vehicle but the letters don't have a one to one correspondence to any specific phrase. It's not an abbreviation or an acronym. Fiver is slang for a fifth wheel, not an abbreviation. Tranny (for transmission) is slang. CAPS (for all capital letters) might arguably be called a different sort of abbreviation where we use just part of a word or words.

I did find just a couple acronyms in our lengthy list of "Acronyms, Abbreviations and Initialisms" such as FROG, which is the Forest River Owners Group and pronounced as its own word, like the amphibian, not as individual letters. GOB (good ol' boy) could be an acronym, as long as we say "gob" and not the letters "G-O-B." Wi-Fi is likely an acronym, as it uses the first two letters of words to make a word (not letters) that is spoken.

An initialism just suggests first letters of a phrase are used to denote the full concept.

So, if you can't say the letters out loud not as individual letters but as its own word, it's probably not an acronym.

Just my two cents.

FBI is an initialism and an abbreviation. Here is what Merriam Webster says on the subject.


https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/initialism


https://grammarist.com/grammar/abbre...s-initialisms/

[SunseekerFunseekers]

I recently heard, "Stinky Slinky" - Your black water hose. Perfect name, huh?!

[Grapehound]

wmtire, you're absolutly right ... FBI satisfies both definitions, abbreviation and initialism.

It's anything made of initials.

But the term initialism is so overbroad as to be almost meaningless. It's something made of initials. Your personal initials are an initialism. The company name GE is an initialism. An acronym like HUD (Housing and Urban Development) is an initialism. It's just over broad with little real meaning.

It would be like defining a travel trailer, a fifth wheel, a pop up trailer and a diesel pusher as "things with wheels." That's correct too but so overbroad that it's not very helpful.

Language teachers may talk about abbreviations or acronyms, but they really don't use this term.

[wmtire]

Originally Posted by Grapehound

wmtire, you're absolutly right ... FBI satisfies both definitions, abbreviation and initialism.

It's anything made of initials.

But the term initialism is so overbroad as to be almost meaningless. It's something made of initials. Your personal initials are an initialism. The company name GE is an initialism. An acronym like HUD (Housing and Urban Development) is an initialism. It's just over broad with little real meaning.

It would be like defining a travel trailer, a fifth wheel, a pop up trailer and a diesel pusher as "things with wheels." That's correct too but so overbroad that it's not very helpful.

Language teachers may talk about abbreviations or acronyms, but they really don't use this term.

Previous discussion on this same topic, when we made the subject title of the list:


http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...tml#post832275


I still get a kick out of where the acronym TASER comes from. Many people do not know it's origin or that it's an acronym.

[gastan]

Originally Posted by HDGoose

And in another forums we were targeted because some one took offense to the phrase "tranny refit". (They found it via Google and did not know anything about mechanics)

If they took offense to your phrase it wasn't because of Google. Just for fun I googled that phrase and on the first 10 pages of results only two were referencing any thing other than transmissions - - - and they were way back at the end. Sounds like they went out of their way to be offended.

[Scrapper]

I made the list and couldn't think of an abbreviation or acronym for the title and I didn't feel like typing out the whole name. I'm sorta lazy that way. That's also why it is not a multi-column document. S-M-DBOI = Someday - Maybe - Don't Bet On It.


YOTTSOA-JGCAHF = Your Over Thinking The Subject Of Acronyms - Just Go Camping And Have Fun



Bet you can't tell it's raining here.