Jul 28, 2007
Acronyms, abbreviations, and HSN coupons
Acronyms and abbreviations have always been a hobby horse of mine. Too many publications use them almost randomly without bothering to define. I suspect I’ve been guilty of that on occasion, but I try not to slip up. I was reading a PhD thesis the other day that had so many acronyms and abbreviations without definition that I felt like failing the candidate there and then. Of course, I didn’t, it wasn’t my call.
If you’re looking for chemical and technical definitions then there are a couple of excellent acronym and abbreviation lookup services you can access via ChemSpy.com Just visit the site’s search page enter your keywords, or rather your clutch of letters, and click either the Berlin or Chemie.de link and the search will begin.
As it is a Saturday, I have to mention our shopping channel too, of course, just so you know how it fares in terms of abbreviations. Of course, there is a whole clutch including the HSN Coupons section of today’s post title, REI coupons, HP coupons, and ShopNBC coupons.
Whoops…almost forgot to define them:
REI – Recreational Equipment Inc
HSN – Home Shopping Network
HP – Hewlett Packard
ShopNBC – Shop Nuclear, Biological, Chemical National Broadcasting Corporation
If you are not in the shopping mood then check out the related links below where you will find a previous article from David Bradley on the subject of why learned societies seem to be so keen on upper and lower case abbreviations and acronyms.
Sciencebase FAQ
Contact me
July 31st, 2007 at 8:42 am
I’m sure there are millions of 2nd and 3rd order acronyms and abbreviations out there. There are also a whole range of tautological acronyms and abbreviations, such as “PIN number”, “PDF format”, “TIFF format” and many others. It’s the kind of thing that used to provide our bread and butter on the back page (Feedback) section of New Scientist.
Anyone got any more interesting variations on the theme that they would care to share? Maybe I should run a competition to find the first genuine fourth order abbreviation…
July 30th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Second order acronyms (and abbreviations) are fun to watch for. Anything with L for laser, N for NASA, etc. NEM for NAAQS Exposure Model, for example, is pretty obscure to me. I only recall one probable TOAA (third order acronyms and abbreviations), but I’d bet there are some more out there. (CPMP= CEMI Participative Managment Program [CEMI= Cominco Electronic Materials Inc. {Cominco= Commonwealth Mining Co.}])
July 30th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Well, yes, you’re right, and I did know that, of course, just not the best edited of items, thanks for picking it up.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Considering it’s a hobby horse of yours, you should be a bit more clued-up about it. Acronyms and abbreviations are not the same thing. Acronyms form a special subset of abbreviations; acronyms make words. So, HSN is an abbreviation, not an acronym. NATO, radar, quango, and FACT are all acronyms.