Acronyms- favourite? Hated? Absent?

[Souleater]

Given our love of acronyms and nerdspeak there are a couple of TLA that I don't see on here that puzzle me.

 

For example, we often write out 'save after save' when we could use SAS.  I know we write a specific value (say 6++) but when we go back to talking about such saves in general we put down the whole thing. 

Another example would be using BLT instead of writing out ' battleline tax'.

Are these things more common in the Twittersphere?

Do any of you have favourite or hated acronyms or shorthand for stuff in our wonderful hobby?

 

[MaatithoftheBrand]

I must admit that as a general rule I dislike a lot of the acronyms used in the game - I find that with so many in the game I struggle to actually parse some posts without effort as I try and figure out why people are debating the value of "MSU in OBR for ME", so I try not to use them.

[apologist]

Agreed with MaatithoftheBrand. I find acronyms and jargon in general really tiresome – particularly when there's a double-layer of meaning. I'm not really confident of what 'battleline tax' means, let alone giving it an acronym that evokes a sandwich.

I'm not against abbreviating things where it aids discussion, but using them for specific fan-made terms is needless jargon that discourages discussion and shuts people out.

Edited October 29, 2019 by apologist

[Sonnenspeer]

It’s okay if you have a list of acronyms somewhere in this forum and always use the full wording the first time you use the term in your post

Example: I like MaatithoftheBrand (MotB) but sometimes MotB uses acronyms the wrong way.

[Double Misfire]

Getting StD out of the way so you guys can proceed with the thread.  🤗

[Souleater]

I work in IT so have perhaps become rather blaise about acronyms. 😁

[TheOtherJosh]

Acronyms are an entry tax on new players and cause confusion.

Any anything that causes confusion for new players is not good.

[GreatWhiteNorthIronjawz]

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out AoE. 

[Kaime]

9 hours ago, Souleater said:

I work in IT so have perhaps become rather blaise about acronyms. 😁

blasé  

Also i think acronyms are dumb, it doesn't take that long to write out the letters.

[Panzer]

Acronyms are all good and fun, but they have to come naturally and there's a limit on how many you can use without the text becoming unreadable. It's also somewhat of a barrier for people new to a community.

[Panzer]

8 hours ago, GreatWhiteNorthIronjawz said:

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out AoE. 

Age of Empires? Area of Effect?  

[XReN]

I like both acronyms and jargon, sometimes it might be unnecessary, but writing down something like:

19 hours ago, MaatithoftheBrand said:

MSU in OBR for ME

Without acronyms is tedious and not worth it for me, especially when typing from smartphone.

P.S. What's TLA?

[Eevika]

I think they are super useful when writing longer texts. I dont want to type out DoK, FeC, LoN or DPR everytime

[RuneBrush]

Depends upon the environment and partly how you're doing it.  I think things like texts and Twitter where you're normally using a small keyboard (i.e. mobile phone) and limited on characters, acronyms are very useful.  On a forum or other platform they can be confusing and often cause a lot of misunderstanding because there are often multiple interpretations for the same shortened phrase: BT - Battletome or Blood Thirster?  LoS - Legion of Sacrament or Line of Sight?  LoN - Legion of Nagash or Legion of Night?

My own view is using them to reduce repetition is great, using them because you can't be bothered to type the words isn't.

[JackStreicher]

They're okay so you don't have to write every faction name. For all of the rest acronyms do more ill than good.

[Souleater]

@XReN TLA stands for Three Letter Acronym 😉

[mojojojo101]

Honeslty the most confusing one(s) is DPR/SAS/FNP/6++. Would be great if the community could pick one and stick to it rather than interchangeably using 5 or 6 acronyms for the same thing.

[zilberfrid]

A bit of an issue is AoS's penchant for long names. It's not Dwarves, it's Kharadron Overlords, it's not Tomb Kings, it's Ossiarch Bonereapers. Instead of Empire, typing out Stormcast Eternal Hammers of Sigmar is simply a lot more to type.

If the names get longer, acronyms get used more.

[mikethefish]

I much prefer acronyms to silly nicknames.

Sorry Vince - the Ossiarch are not the "Bone daddys".  They're just not.

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, mikethefish said:

I much prefer acronyms to silly nicknames.

Sorry Vince - the Ossiarch are not the "Bone daddys".  They're just not.

100% agreed. Acronyms are indeed preferable to silly nicknames, for reasons I've outlined numerous times in other threads. That said, ideally we would use neither. Same thing goes for short hand things like referring to saves beyond armor saves as X++. 

Even putting aside my personal hatreds for these things, there is a practical reason why, on such a friendly and welcoming forum as this one, that we should all be spelling things out: New gamers.

A person who is new to this hobby, or even just new to a particular army or concept,  may be confused (at best) or put off (at worst) by the lack of clear language. Add in actual language barriers in an international discussion space, and it gets worse.

We forget, as veterans, that the things we take for granted or find intuitive are often hard for new people. I am reminded of this every time I show someone something in painting and they don't pick up on it right away. Maybe it's the color wheel, or the importance of composition, or how to highlight a gem. I have to step back and remember that this is new knowledge for many people.

I think the same applies to the words we use (or don't) here.

TLDR; Help us out. Spell it out. 😉

 

One last thing I'll mention again - acronyms would be a bit more tolerable if the forum had a mouse-over function that popped up what a given term means.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Sleboda

[Souleater]

30 minutes ago, mikethefish said:

I much prefer acronyms to silly nicknames.

Sorry Vince - the Ossiarch are not the "Bone daddys".  They're just not.

Yes! Yes! I abhor the term "Bonedaddies" with a passion. 😖

[Sleboda]

On 10/30/2019 at 4:13 AM, Eevika said:

I think they are super useful when writing longer texts. I dont want to type out DoK, FeC, LoN or DPR everytime

So, follow good writing practices and spell it out the first time you use it in a post, include the acronym along with what first reference, and then use the acronym in the remaining instances in the post. It's not that difficult and is helpful to your readers. 

Even just from a selfish standpoint, if more readers can understand what you are saying, you are more likely to get replies and positive feedback.

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, mojojojo101 said:

Honeslty the most confusing one(s) is DPR/SAS/FNP/6++. Would be great if the community could pick one and stick to it rather than interchangeably using 5 or 6 acronyms for the same thing.

Might I suggest using the actual name of the rule in question?

[smartazjb0y]

While I understand that we don't want to be off-putting to new players, I think acronyms for things like factions is entirely fine, especially with Age of Sigmar where they can be pretty long names full of strange words. Having to write out "Daughters of Khaine" or "Ossiarch Bonereapers" every time is kind of annoying. And sure, you can do the thing where you write it out once then use the acronym afterwards, but we're also on a discussion forum where multiple people post back and forth. I don't think every post in a thread about the Bonereapers needs to have "Ossiarch Bonereapers (OBR)." People use that formatting in things like scientific papers because they're abbreviating something that's going to be used a bunch in the next 10 pages, and those aren't discussions where people go back and forth. 

I do agree though that generally acronyms for rules are more annoying than they're worth; e.g. BLT for battleline tax seems just kind of silly. And having the mouseover function isn't a bad idea either, Dakka does that. 

[Sleboda]

42 minutes ago, smartazjb0y said:

Ossiarch Bonereapers (OBR)." People use that formatting in things like scientific papers because they're abbreviating something that's going to be used a bunch in the next 10 pages, and those aren't discussions where people go back and forth. 

I do agree though that generally acronyms for rules are more annoying than they're worth; e.g. BLT for battleline tax seems just kind of silly. And having the mouseover function isn't a bad idea either, Dakka does that. 

- If we're gonna use faction acronyms, let's at least be accurate. It's OB, not OBR. 😁

 

- If we're gonna use other acronyms, let's at least use them for real terms. The "battleline tax" is not a thing that exists. Not only is that not a reference to any actual rule, to call the need to take things in your army that either make it look like an army or help theme it a "tax" is perjorative and inaccurate.

 

- Dakka has very little going for it, but yeah, using the mouse-over is a positive.