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Acronyms (was Re: Correct usage "i.e." and "e.g." ?)
Subject:Acronyms (was Re: Correct usage "i.e." and "e.g." ?) From:Hope Cascio <hope -dot- d -dot- cascio -at- US -dot- ARTHURANDERSEN -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 6 May 1998 11:44:12 -0400
Isn't this just another "it depends" sort of question? I'm more familiar
with the acronym FDIC than the long version, Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation. However, if I had to refer to the FDIC and
was writing for either a translator or an ESL audience, I'd spell it out
once or include it in a glossary of terms (or popup in online Help... you
get the picture).
Hope Cascio
BTW, on the original topic, I was having the same problem with ASCII
characters and Peter, while you have a spiffy little application there,
about 95% of the time it takes more effort to copy and paste the text into
it than to puzzle out the =20's and so forth. I'm just going to have to
hope Lotus Notes 5 doesn't do this to me as badly as LN4.
To: TECHWR-L @ LISTSERV.OKSTATE.EDU
cc: (bcc: Hope D. Cascio)
From: roger -at- CSICAL -dot- COM
Date: 05/06/98 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: Correct usage "i.e." and "e.g." ?
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Now that the "readability" arguments have started surfacing, I have a
question.
For the sake of readability should we abandon all acronyms? How do we
decide which ones to abandon (if any)?
For example (i.e., e.g.,), in a document that refers to the "Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation" (commonly referred to as FDIC), hundreds
of times, which would be more readable, the acronym or the full name?
I, as well as you, can think of many other examples (for you Latin
experts, is "examples" shortened to "g.s"?).
It seems funny to me that here we are arguing readability on this thread
(assuming our readers can't readily understand the acronyms), while a
companion thread (see Nontechnical Technical Writers) is arguing that
writers must be more technical (the assumption is that the reader is
technical enough to understand what is being said).
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Roger Mallett
Control Systems
(714) 458-5040 x 239
