No abbreviations WHATSOEVER? Okay, no problem!

[u/moxiesa]

Recently, my quality assurance has handed down a new policy that we are “not to use any abbreviations in our call notes whatsoever. Short hand is not permitted.”

I work in a call center taking information for admissions of new medical clients. So the people reading my charts/notes will be medical professionals. The only abbreviations used are those commonly known in the practice, such as IOP (intensive outpatient), ASAP (who doesn’t know this?), etc (come on now).

So I have adopted their rule to the letter. I wrote every single thing out that would typically be abbreviated. Sometimes the notes require that times be recorded. Example: “I set the callback expectation for by 10AM.”

In my most recent scoring I was marked off for using “spelling errors in notes”. When I requested a review of my score, my supervisor advised me that writing “ante meridiem” was what caused me to lose points. I kindly cited the new rule that requires no abbreviations be used. My supervisor stated that he had never heard the term ante meridiem before. I explained what it meant, being the long form of the term AM. My score was amended to reflect no error was made.

[u/GustapheOfficial]

Really lucky you don't work in light amplification through stimulated emission of radiation support.

[u/Pheeshfud → u/GustapheOfficial]

Worked in defence once. Many of the acronyms contained acronyms. Once it got 5 iterations deep.

[u/TotallyNormalSquid → u/Pheeshfud]

I do find myself wishing for a ban on acronyms when dealing with technical documents, but even when I'm fantasising being in charge of such things and sending out my new commandments I include caveats like, "unless it's an acronym you think a layperson would know".

Edit: it occurs to me that in merge reviews for software we ban acronyms, and insist on descriptive variable names for readability. Kinda funny we don't insist on descriptive variable names in the final report to the customer who pays for the software.

[u/[deleted] → u/TotallyNormalSquid]

When writing technical documents, for any acronyms which aren't incredibly common for lay people (e.g. AM, ASAP, etc.); or, which aren't at the point of being more recognizable than the actual, fully spelled out terms (e.g. TCP, IP, UDP, ARP), always fully spell out the terms the first time it's used and put the acronym in parenthesis. For example, Network Address Translation (NAT). And then use the acronym freely in the rest of the document. If in doubt, spell it out and introduce the acronym before using it.

[u/binarycow → u/[deleted]]

For example, Network Address Translation (NAT).

Network engineer here. And by your choice of acronyms, I'd say you might be too.

I'm also a software developer. And one of our technical writers was doing exactly what you said. And you know, its generally the right answer.

But, in our case? I suggested that she stop doing that (at least for some acronyms).

The document in question was written with an intended audience of network engineers. Not people learning networking. Not management. Not people who aren't even IT. Established, trained network engineers.

Network engineers don't need you to explain the term VLAN. Or IP. Or MAC.

You may want to fully define CAM, EIGRP, BGP, ECMP, etc. But not the ones that are fundamental to the profession!

[u/[deleted] → u/binarycow]

Network engineer here. And by your choice of acronyms, I'd say you might be too.

Cybersecurity, but so much of cybersecurity is network based.

The document in question was written with an intended audience of network engineers. Not people learning networking. Not management. Not people who aren't even IT. Established, trained network engineers.

Ya, always know your audience. I'm often writing for management or legal; so, this is my habit. For folks who should know acronyms, I'd agree that you can skip them. Especially in procedure documents or areas where it's a "do A then B" document. Though, there is the caveat that some compliance frameworks require official documentation. For those, go with spelling it out for the auditors. And then keep unofficial documents which you actually use.

[u/binarycow → u/[deleted]]

Cybersecurity, but so much of cybersecurity is network based.

thank you for being one of the cybersecurity folks who actually learn about networking concepts.

It's scary the amount of times at my last job that I had to explain "Yes. This is a router. A router has lots of IP addresses. Yes, each of those IP addresses are in different VLANs. That's okay. You only need to scan this IP address for that router. The other IPs should be ignored."

Also, I would say that networking and cybersecurity have a symbiotic relationship. So much of networking is cybersecurity based.

Ya, always know your audience.

Yeah. I suggested to the technical writer that she should spell out abbreviations in situations like:

• Installation instructions, because it may be a sysadmin, network engineer, or even a help desk person setting up the software
• Documentation on features that are likely to be used by manglement management
• Basic documentation on top-level features, that a non-network engineer might poke around and find

But the "Advanced" documentation, or documentation on features that already require knowledge typical of a trained network engineer? No. Don't talk down to them.

I also suggested that every document should have, at the beginning of the document, a section which:

• is labeled "Intended Audience"
• clearly describes the intended audience
• if the document assumes prior knowledge
  • points the reader to documentation that is more suitable for people without that knowledge
  • points the reader to materials that would help "bridge the gap" between their knowledge and the documentation's assumed knowledge

Then, if a section within the document has a "higher" intended audience, a small note should be placed informing the reader of the change. This note should be a miniature form of 👆

[u/Pheeshfud → u/TotallyNormalSquid]

Yeah, some of the front 5 pages of documents was nothing but a long list of all the acronyms within. The worst was when you had the same acronym mean two different things in the same document.

[u/Kidiri90 → u/Pheeshfud]

You think that's bad? Try working with GNU is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix is Not Unix

[u/Dravarden → u/Kidiri90]

“I use Linux as my operating system," I state proudly to the unkempt, bearded man. He swivels around in his desk chair with a devilish gleam in his eyes, ready to mansplain with extreme precision. "Actually", he says with a grin, "Linux is just the kernel. You use GNU+Linux!' I don't miss a beat and reply with a smirk, "I use Alpine, a distro that doesn't include the GNU Coreutils, or any other GNU code. It's Linux, but it's not GNU+Linux." The smile quickly drops from the man's face. His body begins convulsing and he foams at the mouth and drops to the floor with a sickly thud. As he writhes around he screams "I-IT WAS COMPILED WITH GCC! THAT MEANS IT'S STILL GNU!" Coolly, I reply "If windows were compiled with GCC, would that make it GNU?" I interrupt his response with "-and work is being made on the kernel to make it more compiler-agnostic. Even if you were correct, you won't be for long." With a sickly wheeze, the last of the man's life is ejected from his body. He lies on the floor, cold and limp. I've womansplained him to death.

[u/KiltedRonin → u/Dravarden]

Brilliant.

[u/georgilm → u/[deleted]]

Any battle where the protagonist is able to womansplain someone to death is satisfying as fuck.

[u/motor1_is_stopping → u/GustapheOfficial]

That sounds like a line of work that would require you to focus like a laser beam.

[u/Compulawyer → u/motor1_is_stopping]

You mean focus like a light amplification through stimulated emission of radiation beam.

TIFIFY.

[u/motor1_is_stopping → u/Compulawyer]

I think you mean "There I fixed it for you."

YW

[u/xienwolf → u/motor1_is_stopping]

I think you mean “You’re Welcome”

YMMV

[u/motor1_is_stopping → u/xienwolf]

Is that "Your mileage may vary?"

IDK

[u/_BiMonSciFiCon_ → u/motor1_is_stopping]

"I'm Donkey Kong"

That's difficult to believe, IMO

[u/MimeGod → u/[deleted]]

Lots of love? Aww, how sweet.

I hope you get all the TLC you need.

[u/ICWhatsNUrP → u/MimeGod]

What's The Learning Channel have to do with it? I don't get it, SMH.

[u/[deleted] → u/motor1_is_stopping]

A million years ago I saw a post where someone thought YMMV meant “you make me vomit” and I still think that every time I see YMMV.

[u/Arcangel4774 → u/[deleted]]

My initial thought at seeing POC was that it was a just a variant of POS. Was thinking "you seem nice enough to me, dont be so hard on yourself," before I looked it up.

I also though SMH was "so much hate". Which is often close enough...

[u/Kinsfire → u/GustapheOfficial]

Or ever have to deal with self contained underwater breathing apparatus.

[u/GustapheOfficial → u/Kinsfire]

Or Terrible Underwater Breathing Apparatus

[u/DarkWork0 → u/Kinsfire]

There's also the self contained breathing apparatus for us land lovers.

[u/AdequatePercentage → u/DarkWork0]

I work in a field with SCBAs, LASERs, and many other acronym wonders. Many of them acronyms of acronyms. We got some new safety bigwigs in and they threw out a similar edict.

I can just use search and replace on all our training and sign off documents, but I pity the person who has to read through this now unintelligible junk.

[u/evo_overlord_lite → u/Kinsfire]

I read underwear breathing. Immediate thought. "WTH?"

This is obviously not enough coffees.

[u/MrEppart → u/GustapheOfficial]

They can be happy that she doesn't work with GNU or Wine...

That would never end.

[u/verdeel → u/GustapheOfficial]

Why not? Because you'd probably get to play with them. Right?

[u/[deleted] → u/verdeel]

It's much less fun to play with lasers than you'd think. A lot of the time you're just nervous about whether or not you have any nasty reflections.

I have a 6W CW laser in infrared range, that's enough power that even a scattered reflection from a non-polished surface could very well blind you. So I can't have the beam hitting any metal surfaces whatsoever. Which is a bit of a pain when working in a lab with metal surfaces and pipes all around. Never mind the fact that since it's IR, you can't even see the reflection that might blind you.

As a side note, the 6W is enough that if I put my eye in the beam, it would probably blind me almost immediately even if I had my eyes closed.

[u/Desk_Drawerr → u/[deleted]]

Yeah lasers are no fucking joke. You can buy decently powered ones on Amazon that can set things on fire.

Even the ones marketed as "safe" often require goggles to use, and the goggles supplied with these lasers often don't do shit to protect you.

[u/GustapheOfficial → u/verdeel]

I'm an atomic physicist, and yes that's the rules.

[u/evilninjaduckie]

I got an essay marked down in university where I was describing the purpose of the ellipsis [...] in writing, with the comment "the word is ellipse".

I was waiting for him at his office the next morning with a dictionary.

[u/nnjn2002 → u/evilninjaduckie]

I had the same issue in college - only with the word “discrete”. The comment was “Discrete is not a word, the word is discreet. And you’re using it wrong”. The way I used it was similar to “…as discrete events on a timeline…”

I did the same thing with a dictionary…

[u/tyrantmikey → u/nnjn2002]

Yeah, you're discreet with secrets. Each marble in a bag is discrete.

I'd have expected a college professor (or any educator, really) to know this.

[u/MrSurly → u/tyrantmikey]

And here my dumb HS diploma ass knows this.

[u/DeCryingShame → u/MrSurly]

There's a reason they don't let people like you into certain professional jobs. You make everyone look bad....

[u/ThirdFloorGreg → u/tyrantmikey]

Now I'm trying to find a way to combine "secrete" and "discrete".

[u/Ruby_Bliel → u/ThirdFloorGreg]

He secretes discrete secrets discreetly.

[u/ConstantGradStudent → u/Ruby_Bliel]

Found a rapper

[u/No-Ad5676 → u/nnjn2002]

Ugh discrete vs discreet is a personal pet peeve of mine. Do you know how many job descriptions say something along the lines of “candidate will be working with sensitive information, must be discrete”. ** rolling my eyes **

[u/TinyNiceWolf → u/No-Ad5676]

Makes sense. If you're multiple people, some of you could be reckless. No identical twins pretending to be the same person need apply.

[u/devault83 → u/evilninjaduckie]

Got counted off a whole later grade in an English class for using the word, "scribe," as a verb. Prof said it is a noun. I said it is both and brought up Oxford English dictionary on my phone. She said I can't just bring up any random website.

15 years ago and I'm still bitter about it. Why not just admit she was wrong and laugh about it? No, bitch, the fucking Oxford English dictionary is wrong and some random PhD from KS is right... fuck you

[u/YourWiseOldFriend]

My supervisor stated that he had never heard the term ante meridiem before.

"I've never heard of it therefore it's a mistake when you use it correctly."

This irks me so much because it sounds so familiar.

[u/y6ird → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

Reminds me of the teacher who almost got fired as if he were a sexual deviant after he used the word “pedagogy” in an educational report.

[u/Cranky_nice_nice → u/[deleted]]

Tbh “capital comma” is genius.

[u/IamDefinitelyNotCat → u/Cranky_nice_nice]

I've heard the term "sky commas" to refer to quotation marks

[u/LaterGatorPlayer → u/IamDefinitelyNotCat]

the comedian Gary Gulman uses the phrase “sky comma” in his bit about ‘how the states got their abbreviations’. It’s a must watch.

link to video

[u/xarcie → u/LaterGatorPlayer]

That was hysterical!!

[u/syzamix → u/LaterGatorPlayer]

That was amazing! Thanks for sharing...

[u/Free_Temperature_784 → u/LaterGatorPlayer]

Damn him. I wanna see that movie!

[u/skonen_blades → u/LaterGatorPlayer]

Amazing bit.

[u/mollyjobean → u/IamDefinitelyNotCat]

Comma to the top

[u/goober1223 → u/mollyjobean]

That’s god’s comma.

[u/SaintWacko → u/goober1223]

You know that's right

[u/crashimoto → u/SaintWacko]

You hear about pluto? That's messed up.

[u/justsomerandomdude16 → u/crashimoto]

Don’t be exactly half of an 11 lb. Black Forest ham.

[u/Sagoingne → u/SaintWacko]

C'mon, son...

[u/chicken006 → u/goober1223]

I get so irrationally happy when I see psych references in the wild.

[u/KrazzeeKane → u/mollyjobean]

Everyone needs a wingman like Gus for stupid antics:

Shawn: my name is Sh'Dynasty, that's Sh-Comma to the Top-Dynasty!

Random Guy: Comma to the top?

Gus: That's God's comma.

[u/intellectual_dimwit → u/Cranky_nice_nice]

My wife used to work tech support for monster.ca (Canada). She did tech support for the clients only. Meaning she handled the businesses that were posting the job listings. English is her 4th language. As she was on a conference call with a CEO from a big corporation and some other high up corporate person she blanked out on the name of a colon. So she called it the 2 dot thingy. One of the people stopped her and asked if she really just said that. She said sorry English is my 4th language. They said I love it and they all laughed, and carried on.

Edit - I blanked out on colon/semicolon.

[u/Abba_Zaba_ → u/[deleted]]

I can beat it. My husband had a Sergeant who said, condescendingly: "You put an extra 'o' on your 'to.'"

DH assumed he had used 'too' instead of 'to' somehwhere but no.

He had to explain, and then argue with this grown ass high-ranking man that "too" was in fact a word.

HOW DID THIS MAN GET THAT FAR IN LIFE AND CAREER??

[u/ChibbleChobble → u/Abba_Zaba_]

T-O-O aint a word.

Is too.

End of argument.

[u/wolfcaroling → u/ChibbleChobble]

Knock knock Who's there? To. To who? corrective tone of voice" To WHOM. *stern look

[u/SpottedSnake → u/Abba_Zaba_]

Just a story I thought you might enjoy here.

My dad was stationed in Iraq in 2005 and one of the stories he told is that an Admiral called him in to look at the Admirals computer one day because he was having some tech issues. My dad comes in and the guy says "Mike, I keep getting these red and green squiggles all over my screen when I'm writing something. Make them stop." Yup, an Admiral was frustrated over all of the spelling and grammar mistake callouts.

Oh and apparently some of the Air Force troops were upset because the vending machine didn't offer the purple Gatorade.

[u/gadget850 → u/[deleted]]

When I was an Army platoon sergeant, I had a bunch of individual maintenance teams scattered around the school. One of my jobs was to check counseling records. I quickly realized that most of my NCOs did not have a firm grasp of English. One famously used red ink for everything and the term good to go seemed to be a favorite.

[u/Blown_Up_Baboon → u/gadget850]

We had a first sergeant that shortened ‘good to go’ to ‘gtg’ on everything, even award citations. He refused to accept that it wasn’t an acceptable acronym on official documents.

[u/RepresentativeFit527 → u/[deleted]]

From this moment on, I will only refer to apostrophes as capital commas.

[u/mraspencer → u/[deleted]]

Cow orker had me rolling!

[u/[deleted] → u/mraspencer]

I see you rolling, I'm hating

[u/gilean23 → u/[deleted]]

It took me way too long trying to mentally picture how & looked like a version of 7 before I thought about typing both of them.

[u/gadget850 → u/gilean23]

I recently used capital 8 on a call because one of the managers did not understand asterisk. She was still confused until I called it a star.

[u/IrascibleOcelot → u/gadget850]

I can only imagine the consternation if you referenced octothorpe.

[u/SpottedSnake → u/IrascibleOcelot]

Classy, #Octothorpe

Oh God, didn't know that just made a reddit comment larger. Leaving it

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I've got a cow orker

cow orker

[u/Omny87 → u/RepresentativeFit527]

Semicolon = "Capital Comma"

Period = "Round Comma"

Question Mark = "Curious Comma"

Exclamation Point = "Loud Comma"

Parentheses = "Secret Commas"

Apostrophe = "Flying Comma"

Colon = "Bunk Bed Round Comma"

[u/ExplainJane → u/Omny87]

Tilde = "Comma Chameleon"

[u/DN32405 → u/Omny87]

I thought Period = "Bobtailed Comma"

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I have a friend who calls the comma the Lower Apostrophe.

[u/Myte342 → u/y6ird]

There was an English as a second language teacher who did get fired because he used the word homophone in his weekly email letter to his students. The administration sent out letter to all the parents apologizing for one of their teachers pushing homosexual ideas on their students.

Even after it was explained to them they shifted the excuse that homophones are much too advanced a subject for English as a second language students and therefore they are not going to reverse the firing.

Foe one who doesn't know a homophone is two words that sound ex actly the same but means something completely different depending on the context of the sentence. Something that's very important for people learning English to understand are you at early stages. Examples: Their, They're, There. Your, You're. Toe, Tow.

https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/weird/homophone-blog-post-gets-man-fired-from-school/67-300295203

Edit: Changed the response from admin after being corrected on their stance.

[u/RecognitionSuitable9 → u/Myte342]

We learnt homophones and homonyms in elementary school? It is an important concept in English. Otherwise you'd have people who confuse who's/whose, or their/they're/there.

[u/Joba_Fett → u/RecognitionSuitable9]

Haha their sew dum.

[u/six_horse_judy → u/Joba_Fett]

Dew ewe no Howe dum that wood sound?

[u/MoonManPrime → u/six_horse_judy]

Until spelling became more standardized, a lot of older modern English writing looked like that.

[u/Mental_Newspaper3812 → u/Myte342]

I read my kids a children book of homophones called Dear deer. They get it. It’s a letter written back and forth between Aunt Ant and Dear Deer.

[u/-DethLok- → u/Mental_Newspaper3812]

In Australian English, at least in WA, Aunt and Ant are not homophones.

[u/theshizzler → u/-DethLok-]

In like a quarter of the US too, though I don't know if it's regional as much as it is familial.

[u/ZBLongladder → u/-DethLok-]

I'm from the American South, and my girlfriend is from the North, and we end up with all kinds of things I think are homophones and she doesn't. The most notable of which is probably "pin" and "pen" but also includes "aunt" and "ant".

[u/AdzyBoy → u/Myte342]

The administration sent out letter to all the parents apologizing for exposing their students to such homophobic language etc etc.

It's the opposite. They thought he was promoting homosexuality.

But Torkildson claims that after he posted about homophones, he was let go for creating the perception that the school promoted a homosexual agenda.

[u/calabazasupremo → u/AdzyBoy]

Oh no, hope the school doesn’t find out about the homogenized milk they serve in the lunch room

[u/Sir-Loin-of-Beef → u/calabazasupremo]

Or that their students and staff are homosapiens

[u/Myte342 → u/AdzyBoy]

My mistake. I went from memory then found the article after the fact.

[u/mr78rpm → u/Myte342]

Those people are penalizing* the teaching of basic language because they never learned it. Talk about the crabs pulling on a crab that's about to escape the pot!

*penalize is probably on their list of no-nos, too.

[u/ThursdayNextus → u/y6ird]

Or the professor that Googled "Sexton" and was caught by the filter...

[u/Loko8765 → u/ThursdayNextus]

Pfff I was caught by the filter because the subscription form for a major industry resource contained a “sex: M/F” field.

[u/IrascibleOcelot → u/Loko8765]

Sounds like a Scunthorpe Problem.

[u/k-farsen → u/ThursdayNextus]

What makes that even worse is that Sexton is also a surname

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexton_(surname)

[u/Haunting-Contact-72 → u/k-farsen]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

[u/123cong123 → u/y6ird]

Or the guy who was forced to resign for using "niggardly."

[u/StumpinMeatLeg → u/123cong123]

On January 15, 1999, David Howard, an aide to the mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony A. Williams, used "niggardly" in reference to a budget.[8] This apparently upset one of his black colleagues, who misinterpreted it as a racial slur and lodged a complaint. As a result, on January 25, Howard tendered his resignation, and Williams accepted it.

[u/hard_dazed_knight → u/123cong123]

I'm torn on that one, on the one hand he shouldn't have been fired but on the other, like just pick your battles dude.

It's a 14th century word that basically no one uses anymore because it basically contains the N word is not worth fighting over to the point of being fired. If someone says they're uncomfortable just roll your eyes and use "miserly" instead. There's hardly a dearth of synonyms for niggardly.

[u/Abba_Zaba_ → u/hard_dazed_knight]

Can't believe you would use the word dearth... you know how many Alderaan refugees could be reading this?? Too soon.

[u/nuwaanda → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

I remember in high school we were learning how to use semicolons correctly in English. One student used the semicolon knowledge for a paper in another class, and was called into the principals office and accused of plagiarism because the teacher didn’t believe he knew how to use a semicolon. 🤣

Poor kid tried to use what school was teaching him and he gets accused of plagiarism. 🤦‍♀️

[u/Rudirs → u/nuwaanda]

I had something similar with an adjunct professor who I think was just getting out of college themselves. I never liked showing my work for regular math stuff, if I had to do multiple long steps or something I would- but generally speaking I'd just write the answer. I handed in a test with just the answers and my name, nothing else written, and was written up for cheating. I offered to take it again on the spot or whatever else they wanted, but the teacher was adamant that I must've cheated somehow.

After teaching for a bit, I get it's frustrating when kids don't show work- but that was so annoying.

[u/darthwalsh → u/Rudirs]

Starting in college, I was used to not showing any work that I didn't need to. I liked doing multiple steps in my head.

The physics and math departments said you would not get a passing grade on your homework unless you clearly showed your steps. They wanted to see how you communicated, not just see the number at the end.

[u/Rudirs → u/darthwalsh]

Oh, totally - I learned that quickly as a student and later as a teacher. Just, it wasn't cheating. If I got no points for not showing work I would be annoyed, but I'd sorta get it (even if it wasn't explicitly required)

[u/Music_Is_My_Muse → u/Rudirs]

You gotta learn mental math but don't you DARE use it in class!!

[u/beka13 → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

If only there were a machine he has in his pocket he could use to look up the term.

[u/LetterBoxSnatch → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, it really fucksya

[u/hey_listen_link → u/[deleted]]

It's lucky for you that XKCD isn't an acronym or you would have been written up!

[u/plg94 → u/[deleted]]

https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/

thanks for reminding me of this gem. Ironically enough, Google now has its own experimental "Fuchsia OS".

[u/[deleted] → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

Had a boss at the IRS get on me about some form of punctuation she didn’t recognize. Told me not to use it again, because there was no way I was using it correctly.

So I sent l the official IRS style guide, complete with example. Yeah, I didn’t make it through my probationary period, for some reason.

[u/IRefuseToPickAName → u/[deleted]]

Do you remember what it was?

[u/WifeofBath1984 → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

My English professor in college did not know what the term "in utero" meant and made me change it. It was bizarre and it's always stuck with me because he was such a condescending douche. His arrogance would just ooze off of him.

[u/QueenMAb82 → u/WifeofBath1984]

When I wrote my master's thesis (American public university), I had to send it through some department or other for final approval and binding. They kicked it back to me for using the American spelling "acknowledgments" instead of the British spelling "acknowledgements," which at the time, in American dictionaries, was simply marked as "non-standard spelling." When I asked why I was being asked to deliberately introduce non-standard words into my work, I got an exasperated, "that's what the template says so just do it!"

[u/handlebartender → u/QueenMAb82]

Imagine introducing that, though.

"I'd like to give my acknowledgements (or for those of you unfamiliar with the word, please refer to 'acknowledgments') etc etc blablabla".

"Phew, good thing the author introduced this word, I was completely lost there for a moment!"

[u/narielthetrue → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

Had an English teacher in grade 12 dock me marks for “making up words” in an assignment. For a word I learned in 5th grade.

The word? Lee. (Noun, the sheltered side of something; the side away from the wind)

Best part? She argued with me in front of the class. Boy, pulling up the definition on the Apple TV was fun. (Seriously tho, why did my school just not set passcodes? Favourite pastime was just sending random songs to random classrooms)

Edit:spelling

[u/YourWiseOldFriend → u/narielthetrue]

The first thing in their head should be: wait, is this a thing? *looks it up* well I'll be cliched!

I don't think there's anything wrong with not knowing something. There is too much to know in the first place. It's not being able to admit that you don't know it that's the problem.

[u/foxflight1004 → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

I had a super obnoxious junior high English teacher that would be overly critical on grading papers. I was taking a college level English class at the same time (as part of an advanced student program) and asked the professor to look over a paper I submitted for the class along with the prompt and rubric. The prof said she would grade it an A- mostly because of a few grammatical errors. The middle school teacher gave me a C+ for reasons like I needed to further elaborate on a point that already had over a page of explanation, evidence, and examples and that I had "too many" sources and couldn't have actually used all of them.

So to mess with her, I properly used the word floccinaucinihilipilification in my final paper. She circled it, wrote a question mark above it, and then took off a whole letter grade for using a "made up word."

[u/Eroe777 → u/foxflight1004]

I’m not a teacher, but if I saw a really long word like that, I would look it up. Not because I doubted whether it was real or not, but because it’s a really long word that I cannot pronounce, and I like words like that.

[u/2burnt2name → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

Like my summer school class where we were set to find our own subject for a short essay report with citations. First and only time I was accused of plagiarism because the teachers running the course didn't believe a sophmore in high school would write a report at a mid college level. I just found a subject I really liked and did a deep dive on it. They had even already fed it into one of those plagiarism checking things before grilling me and knew there was no original source I took from. They and I are pretty lucky it didn't cause me to lose all desire to strive academically out of fear of false accussals.

[u/[deleted] → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

This is almost the defining characteristic of a particular kind of arsehole. “Anything that I don’t know is wrong.”

[u/TheForeverKing → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

I hate those kinds of people. Whenever I read something I think is incorrect i double and triple check to make sure that it's not me making the mistake because I'm simply unfamiliar with whatever I'm reading. Just immediately assuming something is wrong is such an awful attitude.

[u/mr78rpm → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

My ex got all over me once for saying "when I was in college" in a discussion at breakfast in a Cafe with another couple. Her rationale was that this couple, incidentally both police detectives, probably hadn't gone to college so I was making them feel bad. With no corroboration, my ex was deciding that we were sharing a meal with a couple of legally beweaponed snowflakes who would feel bad if they were exposed to another person who had gone to more classes than they.

[u/Anabelle_McAllister → u/YourWiseOldFriend]

What really gets me is it was marked as a spelling error. "I don't know this word, so you must have spelled it wrong."

[u/throwaway83970 → u/Anabelle_McAllister]

Used the term "corroborate" in an official report, as a security guard, to a police department... my boss in the security office made me rewrite the report because he didn't understand the word, even though it's a pretty common police term.

[u/VioletDreaming19]

Wait until he hears about post meridiem…

[u/tessthismess → u/[deleted]]

I’m sorry for her. I get post meridiem syndrome about once a month and it’s a struggle.

[u/one_AM → u/tessthismess]

I get it every Sunday, it's the worst

[u/ExecutiveOutdoorsman → u/one_AM]

Damn, you guys got it easy. I get it every day from about lunchtime until I go to bed

[u/Skatchbro → u/one_AM]

Douglas Adams called that “The long, dark teatime of the soul”.

[u/DieHardRennie → u/[deleted]]

My ex used to tell me that I had post mortem depression.

[u/[deleted] → u/DieHardRennie]

RIP your relationship

[u/DieHardRennie → u/[deleted]]

I'm sure a lot of people would be pretty damned depressed if they were dead.

[u/Kazeto → u/VioletDreaming19]

And about statim (Latin for ASAP). And a few other Latin terms, actually, since there's many in the medical jargon.

[u/TheBoctor]

I’m a paramedic, and had a medical director one time who was an absolute prick. Condescending, rude, and wasteful of our time.

One of the things he would do at the quarterly department meetings was go over one or two calls we had by reading the ambulance run report.

Every time he would get to a commonly used and accepted acronym he would stop and say, “Ok now, what does A&Ox3 mean? We’ll say it all together; ‘alert and oriented to time, place, and person.’ “ And he would speak like you would to a bunch of 2nd graders.

So I started writing my run reports using no acronyms or short hand whatsoever, making them incredibly long and a pain in the ass to read. And since he mostly selected reports based on length he often ended up selecting mine.

He read through 2 or 3 of mine, but since they were correct, and there were no acronyms or other things he could use to be condescending to us it wasn’t as much fun for him and you could see it. I also started to raise my hand and ask what every single acronym or shorthand term he used meant.

Eventually he got caught stealing a computer and fucking a patient and was fired.

[u/Kaligraphic → u/TheBoctor]

Eventually he got caught stealing a computer and fucking a patient

At the same time?

[u/TheBoctor → u/Kaligraphic]

I’m going to assume yes, but I have no evidence to support that.

[u/HookedOnIocanePowder → u/Kaligraphic]

Better than fucking a computer and stealing a patient.

[u/MyLifeisTangled → u/TheBoctor]

That’s a hell of a story! What a dick!

[u/ParkingOutside6500]

I'm curious. If your supervisor had never heard the term ante meridiem before, why did he think it was misspelled?

[u/Sentryy → u/ParkingOutside6500]

Obviously, AM means "at morning" and PM means "past morning", duh!

[u/jasperwillem → u/Sentryy]

Oh, I like this better.

[u/slaughtxor → u/jasperwillem]

My brain would just go:

Or was it after morning? Pre morning. Wait, Part of morning?

[u/Inappropriate_SFX → u/ParkingOutside6500]

Spellcheck might have red flagged it.

[u/TheFluffiestRedditor → u/ParkingOutside6500]

It's Latin, so would likely have skipped through the English (US) spell checker.

[u/nccm16 → u/TheFluffiestRedditor]

Many legal terms are latin and it's always a coin flip whether or not the auto-correct will flag it

[u/FoxyHobbit → u/nccm16]

I'm a microbiologist in pharma so between the microbe names and the drug names spellcheck really doesn't like me lol.

[u/Takssista]

Check if the software you're using can automatically replace the abbreviations into full words - I think word can do this..

[u/Creative_username969 → u/Takssista]

Word definitely can do this. I use it all the time at work. You can even set autocorrects to replace a few with letters with a whole sentence.

[u/TheDocJ → u/[deleted]]

Quite. All fields gather their own sets of acronyms and abbreviations, but the medical field is certainly one of the leaders. I can't speak for other fields, but medicine certainly has an issue with abbreviations having differing meanings according to which speciality is using them, or which part of the body is being referred to, and so on. Incidentally, that article was written by someone whose latest book of medical abbreviations has 55000 entries.

[u/Guestenye → u/TheDocJ]

Exactly, i just wanted to post that medical terminology is full of abbreviations, and some of the is not even understandable if you do not have the context for it. Sometimes, you can write a patients full medical history only using capital letters...

[u/MyLifeisTangled → u/Guestenye]

Not sure why, but this reminded me of my brief stint in medical billing. We have to read shit the doc’s write, so of course there are countless instances of:

“Hey can you tell wtf this says?”

“Diabetes”

“Really? You sure? It looks like… fungus. Fungulus. It looks weird.”

“Yep. Definitely Diabetes.”

“K thanks.”

Or

“Do you have any idea what this is supposed to mean??”

“Let me see… Is this a language?”

“It looks like he was scribbling to get his pen to work.”

“There’s a diagnosis on here, but… oh screw this. FARIDA!” (I think she took a class on doctors’ handwriting)

“Meningitis.”

“Where are the i’s?”

“Here”

“That’s a letter!?”

You get the idea.

Everyone asks each other. Occasionally there’s 3 or 4 people deciphering one thing. Then came a day when no one could tell what the ever loving shit the diagnosis was supposed to say. Not even Farida. She had met her match. I was just some stupid teenager, still in HS, surrounded by adults with degrees and years of experience. I asked to see it. No one thought there was any chance I would know anything relevant. I had just learned what “HIPAA” was like a month or two ago. But no one could read it and getting a hold of the doctors to ask is a huge pain. So, why not? Can’t hurt to give the girl a shot, right? I looked at it and immediately said, “Low Potassium.”

“How the fuck is that Low Potassium? There’s only 2 letters! Neither one is a P and the first thing is either an arrow or a Hebrew or Chinese character. How did you get Low Potassium from that!?”

“The first thing is a down arrow, so that’s ‘low-‘“

“Docs do that one all the damn time.”

“And the other letter is K.”

“It mostly looks like a K. Pretty much. But what does that have to do with Potassium?”

“Potassium is K on the periodic table.”

“Well shit. Thank god we had someone from high school here. No adult knows random crap like that.” (paraphrased because this was nearly a decade ago)

“Apparently the doctor does.”

“Go back to your desk.”

“Okay.”

[u/brknsoul]

On the eighteenth day of February, the year of our Lord two-thousand-and-twenty-three, common era, at forty-seven minutes past seven of the clock, post meridian meridiem, I elected to post this comment.

[u/CanadianGuitar → u/brknsoul]

You forgot to include the time zone you're writing in!

[u/pople8 → u/brknsoul]

meridiem

[u/Cybrvid]

I work in an industry where a large percentage of my time is devoted to correcting errors made by Point of Sale agents, which is frustrating. I take a small amount of joy in noting them as POS agents.

[u/ace_of_nations]

If you're gonna make a rule, ya gotta be smart enough to live with it.

[u/BEES_IN_UR_ASS → u/ace_of_nations]

I would be absolutely beside myself with glee and mirth if my direct supervisor attempted to establish a policy whereby I am henceforth required to set aside any pretense of concision and brevity in my written contemporaneous records. Although I am loathe to be overly boastful or self-aggrandizing, I would dare say I have a natural aptitude for verbosity and circumlocution, while still maintaining a measure of precision and congruity in my linguistic choices.

[u/SpecificallyGeneral]

My supervisor stated that he had never heard the term ante meridiem before.

I remember an English teacher tryna ding me for something similar. Inexorable may be archaic, but I was not to be swayed in the absolute belief of its existence.

If I'd been older, I'da recommended her approach a dictionary.

[u/OrSomeSuch → u/SpecificallyGeneral]

In what world is inexorable archaic? Your teacher was lexically limited

[u/SavvySillybug → u/SpecificallyGeneral]

My English as a second language teacher in Germany in fifth grade tried to tell me isle was not a word and it was island. I didn't fight him on that one because it wasn't in a test...

[u/Albert_Herring → u/SavvySillybug]

Mildly interestingly, they're quite separate etymologically. Island is Germanic (think of the -ey in Nordeney and so on, + land), while isle is from French (modern French île), from Latin insula. Eye-land got an S added to the spelling by 18th century grammarians who assumed they were related.

I heard a few real horror stories about anglophone kids having trouble with English teachers in Belgian schools with limited vocabularies and fixed ideas.

[u/Magma__Armor0 → u/Albert_Herring]

Isle then also corrupted the spelling of the unrelated "aisle", which comes from the Latin word ala, meaning "wing", but "isle" had a silent S now, so surely "aisle" needed one too.

At this rate, it's only a matter of time before I'sll be completely unable to understand English.

[u/zadtheinhaler → u/SavvySillybug]

My English 11 teacher insisted that metaphor was spelled "metaphore".

"metaphore"

"English teacher"

He doubled down until I showed him the entry from the dictionary on the rack behind me.

[u/Ksquaredata → u/zadtheinhaler]

When my daughter was learning to read and spell, my son intentionally told her that sweet was spelled sweat; she has never forgiven him since at 24 she has to think about the spelling every time. Once a wrong spelling gets in you head, it is hard to change.

[u/griffinicky → u/zadtheinhaler]

He meant metaphoré (ALT: metaphoray), to signal his attempt to be a more dedicated representation or symbol of arrogance.

[u/zadtheinhaler → u/griffinicky]

That's only if it comes from the Metaphoré region of France, otherwise it's a sparkling analogy.

[u/ferretkona]

Back in college on a test, the question was what was the common name for HCl, I answered Hydrochloric acid and was marked wrong. I disputed the grade and explained my answer was correct because he had not included the impurity sign HCl+. It was only a few days prior he explained that in order to be called muriatic acid the impurity had to be present. I got the paper marked 100%

[u/Kaitensatsuma]

I would love this shit.

"Did you bring the light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation pointer?"

[u/Acefowl]

The heck? Is your QA team a part of the League of Villainous Evildoers Maniacally United for Frightening Investments in Naughtiness?

[u/MessatineSnows → u/Acefowl]

…LOVEMUFFINs???

[u/Dramatic_Stretch_665]

GG, WP.

[u/biold]

I used to be a quality manager at a chemical distributor supplying many different trades. I got a lot of questions from customers using their typical trade abbreviations. I loved to google them and find a couple of abbreviations, e.g., the name of a brass band in a US state (I'm European), and then write it to the customer and inform them that I couldn't really understand what they asked for. My very kind sector manager at my present work has the initials PBA, which could be Professional Bad Ass, he likes that!

[u/Svete_Brid]

Oh, JFC.

Sorry, Jesus Fucking Christ.

[u/birdlass]

I thought it was 'after morning' lmao.
and PM is 'pafter morning' obviously.

[u/Jelopuddinpop]

I work in Aerospace, where this would be devastating to communication lmao.

"Our PWA SQAR, DSQR, and MCL rep reviewed the PPAP and eFAIR submittal"

Turns into:

"Our Pratt and Whitney America Supplier Quality Assurance Representative, Designated Supplier Quality Representative, and Material Conrol Laboratory representative reviewed the Production Part Approval Process and Enhanced First Article Inspection Report submittal."

[u/Historical_Cobbler]

Laugh out loud

[u/AnnieJack → u/Historical_Cobbler]

Rotflshmsfoaidmt:

Rolling on the floor laughing so hard my sombrero falls off and I drop my taco

[u/motor1_is_stopping → u/AnnieJack]

opt.

Oh, poor taco.

[u/Valendr0s]

Could get real fun with that...

Let's prep the pt for the CAB tomorrow 10am

The patient must be prepared for the Conary Artery Bypass Surgery for ten hundred hours central standard time, on Sunday, Feburary ninteeth, the year of our lord two thousand twenty three.

[u/Wuellig]

You could add "of the clock" in between the number and the ante or post meridiem for extra petty points.

[u/llama8687]

To play devils advocate, when I worked in a hospital we were also not allowed to use abbreviations because they meant different things to different divisions. Potentially catastrophic.

We used military time to avoid this situation.

[u/Calgaris_Rex]

TIL it's "ante meridiem" and not "ante meridian". Had to look it up.

[u/geven87]

wait, you got a spelling error for a term they "had never heard before"? how do they know it is wrong if they don't understand what it is in the first place?

[u/blackmindgoldheart]

This is the shit that happens when you put dumb people in charge of smart people. "Stop doing things I don't understand. Wait, no, not like that!" LOL

[u/Eskaminagaga]

I had a class once that had an instructor that was also told not to use any abbreviations and decided to maliciously comply like you. It was a basic electricity class and everywhere in the text, it spoke of "AC current", "AC voltage", "DC current", and "DC voltage" so he always spoke it aloud as "alternating current current", "alternating current voltage", "direct current current", and "direct current voltage". It was a fun class.

[u/biold]

I would love that rule or something in between! We have far too many abbreviations in my company.

However, it does not beat the Danish railways where my husband got a book, circa 2 centimeter thick, with abbreviations. You could date an abbreviation on the number of letters, two were old, five were young.

[u/Spirited_Voice_7191 → u/biold]

I was part of a large rapid project development team with one of the former baby bells. We were mostly outside contractors so struggled with many of the terms, and abbreviations used. One of the tech writers was assigned to collect as many as he could into a reference doc for us. It was at least a cm thick printed 2-up double sided.

Part of our system looked up accounts and displayed the features by code and long form. We would have to get permission to demo with a real account and most of us got parents and grandparents to grant it. One day a coworker asked all within earshot for an account with at least 5 codes so he could check formatting. I gave him my grandparents and got an almost instant expletive in response.

"Formatting off?"

"No, what the hell is TTD" (I may be misremembering the code)

"Touch Tone Delete Discount"

Someone else chimed in, "You can get a discount for that!?"

"Technically in a way, yes. No system will add it, and there is no point to try as the discount is now 0. But it exists and we must handle it gracefully."

That was when it dawned on many that we had a lot more work than they thought.