Abbreviations and Acronyms

The acronyms really aren't that hard to figure out by just being around the site long enough. It's not elitist to use them, because we that do use them aren't trying to keep non-acronym users down by using them. If there's one you don't know, either Google it or simply ask in the forums; most people are quite helpful in regards to them because we realize it isn't a perfect system. In my experience, asking for answers has seldom, if ever, elicited an insulting, elitist response. It's here for efficiency and maybe some laziness, but it is here to stay. To those saying that we should always spell out beers and those who don't are lazy, I say is it not just as lazy to not want to take 5 seconds to look it up? It goes both ways, I think.

Really, though, there wasn't much of a reason to make a issue out of this. Claiming it adds to elitism is just silly, but I won't deny it does add to the learning curve.

TL; DR: If you don't know, just ask.

 

You sound mad with the unecessary profanity, and you have guns. Perfect. For the record, guns are a poor comparison because many of them have names that are -- or include -- acronyms. By comparison I've never purchased a beer called HK MP5A5. Beers usually have names not acronyms until you see what people do to said names in these threads. When I go to BevMo or Total Wine, many of the employees already don't know what I'm talking about when I ask for sought after beers. I wonder what kind of looks they'd give me if I started throwing the BA acronym alphabet at them... They might think I have lettourettes syndrome..

 

If I come across an acronym I don't know & I actually care, I'll ask for the meaning. I used to think laziness for acronyms until had to send a lengthy text on my phone. If I posted from my mobile device I would be the worst offender...

 

Believe me, I wasn't mad. I was annoyed and responded with profanity because of profanity was thrown at me. I'm not going to go into the ridiculous "you are mad + gun ...OMG, are you going to shoot me?" snide. Definitely never heard that before Typical uneducated statement that is so absurd, I know better than humor you on that subject. However, if you're so inclined to learn more, I'd be happy to discuss any gun topic offline with you. I will even give you my phone number is you want to call and chat about anything on that topic.

Back on the point I made, I'm not talking about gun models named and abbreviated specifically by a manufacturer. I'm talking about terms like BBL, LPK, BUIS, VFG, BCG and many more along the line of common parts that newbies wouldn't know (and even long-time gun owners don't know because they are not involved in buy/sell/trade enough) that were formed because they were used frequently.

 

I know that gun acronyms can be easily deciphered. That's why it's a bad analogy. Guns had acronyms long before Al Gore invented the internet lol. There's even a page of gun abbreviations on Wiki. Beers on the other hand didn't have acronyms until people on these threads started making them up. Like I said, try it at your average big chain liquor store and see how many know what you're referring to..

 

I can't believe there's this big of a fuss over acronyms. And the fact that a mod said he's "on the fence" with it in the trade forums? How hard is it to take an acronym you don't know, put "beer" next to it, and Google it?

Oh, you don't know what BCBS means? Let's see if my method works...

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=BCBS+beer

 

Let's ignore the fact that you misappropriated your own claim of using gun acronyms as a poor example and break it down Barney-style.

I work at a military hospital and everyday I find myself in conversations where entire sentences are composed of acronyms/abbreviations with almost no determiners/syntactic fillers at all:

"SGT, ERA Px 132 BHCG ASAP"

Whereas they are common ground in my line and place of work, I don't expect laymen to understand what is being conveyed to me without some sort of training/education in the subject, and I would not foolishly dare go somewhere where I know for a fact people will be foreign to such lexicon and try to make myself understood using said diction.

I don't think it's any different in this case; if you're new to the scene, nobody expects you to know what all the acronyms mean unless you ask/do some work and put in the effort to learn. I'm also quite new to BA myself and I've found the people here friendly and more than willing to help at every turn. Plus, if you're worried about getting butt-hurt about others' opinions (whether they be valid or not), maybe the internet isn't the best place for you...

 

Don't you think banning acronyms seems a little extreme? Or possibly... incredibly extreme? Acronyms aren't that difficult. It's just a matter of being resourceful, and as someone who was once brand new, I don't think it's that hard. If I'm looking for a beer with the search function, I use the proper name and common abbreviations. And I've never once encountered an acronym that I couldn't figure out with 90 seconds of research.

Obviously, this is just my opinion and everyone else's opinions count. But actually banning the use of acronyms just seems ridiculous to me.

 

My complaint is not so much about just acronyms in BA. It's more about the overall decline of the English language and the idea that people are saving oh so much time by turning things into a series of letters. It's just another symptom in my opinion. That doesn't mean that I don't understand or can't decipher these acronyms. I do. That's not the point. Beer names are not complete sentences, so I don't see the big deal in typing out the name of a beer, especially in the discussion of said beer. Eventually if you abbreviate every beer you will end up with the same acronym meaning 20 different things depending on what you're looking up on the internet..

 

This is why I voiced myself in post #50 up there when Todd said he was "on the fence now". I agree with the current long-standing policy of not using acronyms in any forums except the trade forums.

 

Both the gun industry and the military are acronym-heavy communities, many times by necessity. I don't think that applies with beer. Many of us here are not in the "industry" and more importantly we're not shortening things to acronyms to save precious time or lives on the battlefield or in an operating room...

 

As someone who has defended a Master's thesis on the "Origin and Morphology of Pre-Ryukyuan Proto-Japonic Languages" in English, I think you're beating a dead horse if that is at the crux of your agenda. This would, however, bring up a chuckle or two if you were to neatly organize the contents of this post in the form of a research essay and post it on Geoffrey Pullum et al.'s Language Log...

 

How much quicker could you have replied if you had just said BADH instead of beating a dead horse?

In all seriousness, I don't have an agenda. I just think all the acronyms are kind of silly and unnecessary.

 

Unless you have several hundred of transactions on gun forums, forgive me if I don't take your assessment of similarities on the use of acronyms between beer trading forums and gun/parts trading forums.

When I'm trading, I want to know as quickly as possible what you have for trade and are in search of. I'm not expecting a beautifully written short story about the awesomeness of the beer you have and I definitely don't need eloquence of the English language with all completely spelled out words. To expect that anywhere else when communicating is fine, but to lament the "overall decline of the English language" because of a hobby-specific trading forum using acronyms for efficient communication is ridiculous. To your other test, time and place matter, a beer store is not a forum of mostly people familiar with or have time to look up acronyms in literally seconds TYPING up words.

Said the guy who has zero trade history.

 

By that definition, you're just trolling. Thank you, come again.

 

Why do I have to have an agenda? I'm expressing an opinion shared by others.. Much of BA and other sites/forums for that matter are made up of mostly opinions.

 

Okay, this has gone way far away from the OP (Original Post[er], for those who are still coming to grips with it)'s intentions to the point where pursuing this discourse any further would only result in a flame war, and for that I apologize.

In the interest of "expressing opinions without an agenda" I propose BAs that like using acronyms continue doing so, and those that don't to resume spelling everything out, no matter how ridiculously long and annoying/tedious it may be. (case in point, try typing out "DC Brau On The Wings of the Apocalypse" over and over in a trade forum)

 

Not to repeat myself but in the interests of saving you time, there is that CTRL+C / CTRL+V shortcut I mentioned..