Isn't clarity the point of communications? Why make it more
obscure than necessary? It's also very selfish and ethnocentric,
since this newsgroup encompasses a worldwide community. It's
enough that we force everybody to use English. We shouldn't
also force them to learn silly jargon... unless they're
middle school kids using ICQ.

Bruce Barnett wrote:

Either you learn the terminology by reading and waiting, or you learn
how to use the tools of the Internet. I think the second is more
useful, which is why my first response to this thread told readers to
use google to search this newsgroup for acronyms used here.

You're not alone. I've been using the Internet since ArpaNet
days (1975), English is my native language, and I don't know
what a lot of them mean either. I assume that people who use
them aren't really interested in getting their message across,
they just like to post.

Even sillier are the people who think you should have to scroll
down three pages to see if they've added anything new to all the
previous posts they've cited. If I don't see anything new on
the first page, I usually don't bother to look further.

Pat wrote:
I don't know what they mean and English is my native language.

That wasn't jargon, she was reading the eye chart.

Pat wrote:
Its not just here. I visited the eye doctor. The girl rattled off a bunch
of jargon. She was able to repeat it in English when I asked her to.

Isn't the point of shorthand to allow someone to copy text in
real time? You don't have to do that if you're the one typing
the message in the first place.

Here in Illinois, CMS is the Central Management Services division
of the state government, and BLO is a street term for cocaine.


charlie b wrote:

I think it's more like shorthand - a quick way to communicate
and cuts down on typing. It's a lot easier to use CMS for
compound miter saw and SCMS for sliding compound miter
saw. BLO is quicker than typing boiled linseed oil.

Oh, c'mon. You've learned the language if you know what a
sliding compound miter saw or boiled linseed oil are. You're
just showing off, or being elitest, when you start obscuring
things with acronyms and then tell everybody who doesn't
understand them that they aren't as well versed in the field
as you. You're just spewing alphabet soup.

George wrote:

I open those out of curiosity. How am I going to learn anything until I
learn the language?

Use to hear objections about that from the kids at school. "How come we
have to learn these big words?" pertaining to biological vocabulary was as
common a question as "Is this going to be on the test?"

Answer to both was the same - life is cumulative. Takes everything you know
to learn what you need.

Non sequiter. People haven't lost interest in learning when they
complain about others using stupid acronyms. Maybe they'd rather
learn HOW to use a sliding compound miter saw than all the different
ways to refer to one in this newsgroup.

mac davis wrote:

very good, Grasshopper....

I've always felt that when you lose interest in learning, you lose interest in
living... sort of like "enlightenment enables you to see how much you still have
to learn"?

In article ,
"Pat" wrote:

Years ago I always carried a Sears pocket knife. I liked them because of
the warrantee. Free replacement when I broke a blade. I would get new ones
several times a year.

From what my dad taught me about proper use and care of the pocketknife
I received from him on my 9th BD - he would have taken yours away. If
you were breaking blades then you were likely using the wrong tool for
the job. (AFAIR, I don't believe I've ever broken a knife blade.)

BTW, my SWMBOjr gave me a beauty of a pocketknife for Xmas - 3"x
1/4"x1/4", two blades, segmented wood on one bolster, dyed wood on the
other. Haven't carried a pocketknife for years; I'd forgotten how nice
it is to have one close at hand.

--
Owen Lowe

Northwest Woodturners
Pacific Northwest Woodturning Guild
___
Tips fer Turnin': Place a sign, easily seen as you switch on your lathe, warning you to remove any and all rings from your fingers. Called degloving, extended hardware can grab your ring and rip it off your finger. A pic for the strong of stomach: www.itim.nsw.gov.au/go/objectid/2A3AC703-1321-1C29-70B067DC88E16BFC/index.cfm

Besides, rings can easily mar the surface of a turning as you check for finished smoothness.

I am an "elitist" because I advocate learning others' language? While you,
who refuse to,
would be what?

Language grows through neologisms of all sorts, including abbreviations,
pronounceable or not.

I'll go with Leo. If you won't learn from others, how do you fancy you know
so much?

"Mike Berger" wrote in message
...
Oh, c'mon. You've learned the language if you know what a
sliding compound miter saw or boiled linseed oil are. You're
just showing off, or being elitest, when you start obscuring
things with acronyms and then tell everybody who doesn't
understand them that they aren't as well versed in the field
as you. You're just spewing alphabet soup.

George wrote:

I open those out of curiosity. How am I going to learn anything until I
learn the language?

Use to hear objections about that from the kids at school. "How come we
have to learn these big words?" pertaining to biological vocabulary was
as common a question as "Is this going to be on the test?"

Answer to both was the same - life is cumulative. Takes everything you
know to learn what you need.

"George" George@least wrote in message
...

"Lobby Dosser" wrote in message
news:eQLuf.1327$QI6.1126@trnddc07...
"Leo Lichtman" wrote:
So--as you get older, more experienced and more informed, you
perception is that you are constantly becoming more ignorant. You
arrive at the end of life totally frustrated, or senile.



Or, You Just Don't Care!

Ah yes, the ignorance = bliss approach. Saw a lot of that, and not just
in the kids. You have to know enough to know that you know too little.
Of course, when you don't you can be confident in the rightness of your
opinions.
==================
George,
A lot of what your'e seeing is a result of the indoctrination in "self
esteem", whether deeserved or not. The natural outgrowth of all this is "
I'm impressed with myself, so I can't be wrong". My wife is a prof. at a
community college and she's seeing this a lot now. FWIW

Ken Moon
Webberville, TX.

I fixed your top-posting.

Mike Berger writes:
Bruce Barnett wrote:
Either you learn the terminology by reading and waiting, or you learn
how to use the tools of the Internet. I think the second is more
useful, which is why my first response to this thread told readers to
use google to search this newsgroup for acronyms used here.


Isn't clarity the point of communications? Why make it more
obscure than necessary?

first of all, I consider "teaching a man how to fish" more useful than
"giving a man a fish."

If I can teach someone how to use the Internet, then they can get the
answer to their question - ANY QUESTION - immediately.

If we just answer the question - well, - how much do we know about the
experience and knowledge of the person asking the question?

They have to wait for a response - and when they get it, they may not
understand it. So they have to ask a second, and a third question.

This might take days. However, if they know how to search this
newsgroup ( which only takes 15 seconds to learn) they can getdozens
or hundreds of answers immediately.


Second - I don't understand your point about Clarity and obscurity.

If every single post has to be written for a "Intro to Woodworking
level" then you won't get many responses. It takes too much time for
each and every one of us to define basic terms. Over and Over and Over
and Over.

And have you considered the frustration if someone spends 30 minutes
writing a very good response to a question, only to have someone ask
the exact same question the next week?

The clearest response is to have someone look up the earlier posting,
instead of asking for someone to repeat it.

It's also very selfish and ethnocentric,

It's selfish to expect everyone to bend over backwards to answer YOUR
questions. We shoudl consider answers a gift - freely received,a nd
gratefully accepted. You aren't paying us to answers. Heck - you
doon't even have to go to the local woodworking store and ask the
question. This newsgroup is GREAT!

And what do you mean by ethnocentric?

since this newsgroup encompasses a worldwide community. It's
enough that we force everybody to use English. We shouldn't
also force them to learn silly jargon... unless they're
middle school kids using ICQ.

What's ICQ?

Seriously - people here can have two attitudes:

a) I don't want to learn anything - I just want to solve my problem.
b) I am willing to learn

If you are not willing to learn, then why should we be willing to teach?


I posted the exact URL you can use to look up ANYTHING in this newsgroup.
All you have to do is bookmark it. This takes 5 seconds.
Let me repeat myself
It's
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.crafts.woodturning

You bookmark it. To use it, you go to your bookmark, type in the
phrases you don't understand, and click "Search This Group"

FIVE SECONDS OF EFFORT!!!

Now you are telling me that this is too much effort to do?

Besides - if you are serious about something, you can always ask.
Nobody here said they weren't going to ANSWER your question.


It's quite simple.

You can either ask a question, and if you don't understand
the answer, ask a second question, and a third, etc..

Or you can learn how to search this newsgroup for answers to
your question, and get the answers right away.

It's your choice. The first requires no knowlegde, but takes longer.
The second requires 5 seconds of effort, and can give you the answer in
5 seconds instead of days.

In My Humble Opinion, the second method is the BEST method. It's
faster, and can give you access to lots more information.

Forgive me for suggesting that you use this method.
Apparently it was very selfish and ethocentric.


--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.

Mike Berger wrote:

Non sequiter. People haven't lost interest in learning when they
complain about others using stupid acronyms. Maybe they'd rather
learn HOW to use a sliding compound miter saw than all the different
ways to refer to one in this newsgroup.

There's only One way: SCMS.


mac davis wrote:

very good, Grasshopper....

I've always felt that when you lose interest in learning, you lose
interest in living... sort of like "enlightenment enables you to see
how much you still have to learn"?

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 12:02:01 -0600, Mike Berger
wrote:

Isn't clarity the point of communications? Why make it more
obscure than necessary?

Because we really don't want you to know what we're talking about
until you've been initiated or have saved the boxtops and gotten the
decoder ring.

It's also very selfish and ethnocentric,

Oh puh-leeeze. Let me guess, it's rrrrrracist, too, right? Can we
please overuse another word or two and take away all possible
significance it might ever have had? What are you, 10?

since this newsgroup encompasses a worldwide community.

Yep, there are people on here from the US, UK, Australia, Belgium,
France, Germany, various African nations, Peru, and probably other
South American countries, I believe and probably a multitude of other
ones as well and yet the only one whining about "I don't know how to
play the game....change the rules for me.. WAAAAH!!!." is an
English-speaking, self-proclaimed 3 decade netizen who SHOULD know
better and another English-speaking whiner of unknown pedigree.
Everybody else deals with it, and either asks nicely, looks it up or
waits until they learn it on their own.

It's
enough that we force everybody to use English. We shouldn't
also force them to learn silly jargon... unless they're
middle school kids using ICQ.

ICQ? Now who's using "silly jargo?" Any of you non-English speakers
here, what time of day did the "Speak English Police" come to your
house and hold the gun to your head?

You're not alone. I've been using the Internet since ArpaNet
days (1975), English is my native language, and I don't know
what a lot of them mean either. I assume that people who use
them aren't really interested in getting their message across,
they just like to post.

You've been around for over 30 years yet you don't know the purpose
and origin of the wide use of acronyms on UseNet? ah-hem....who're
you trying to kid? If you've _really_ been around that long, that
doesn't even bear commenting on.

Oh, c'mon. You've learned the language if you know what a
sliding compound miter saw or boiled linseed oil are. You're
just showing off, or being elitest, when you start obscuring
things with acronyms and then tell everybody who doesn't
understand them that they aren't as well versed in the field
as you. You're just spewing alphabet soup.

Oh, c'mon. You've been around the 'Net long enough so you know
perfectly well the reason for acronyms (in part, the same as their use
as in any other community or subculture). You know perfectly well
what LOL, FWIW and all the rest mean. You're just spewing alligator
tears and being a troll.

Non sequiter. People haven't lost interest in learning when they
complain about others using stupid acronyms. Maybe they'd rather
learn HOW to use a sliding compound miter saw than all the different
ways to refer to one in this newsgroup.

No, Troll, they have just lost interest (or never even actually_ had_
any, like most trolls don't) in the use and topic of the newsgroup.
Like trolls who go to any newsgroup and pick some stupid thing to ****
and moan about, they just get people stirred up and then go on their
merry way.

Is this really Al Kyder? Have you been reincarnated as a troll, Al?
If you have, I liked you better as Al. At least your posts were
funny. Now they're just whiney and pathetic.

If it is, please go back to being Al. Otherwise, take off, Troll.

PLONK...! (know what that means, "Old-timer?")



--
Chuck *#:^)
chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply.


September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't try to learn useful things
unless we're also willing to learn silly useless stuff too? One
can learn woodworking skills from others without having to
decipher silly, non-standard, made-up acronyms and words.

It's not limited to this newsgroup, of course. People like to
use jargon everywhere. But some terms are more universal than
others. While many terms are commonly used in publications,
some of them only seem to appear in usenet postings.

Then there's the ambiguity. Some of us have more than one interest.
While you might think SCMS is a sliding compound miter saw, most of
the world (that is familiar with the term) knows it as the
Serial Copying Management System. And why do some of you need
row address strobes (RAS) in your shops? Just what are you
refreshing? If you use TS for table saw, how can TM (t) be
tape measure? Shouldn't it be table miter?

Language growth is fine, unless it's just to increase ambiguity or
decrease accessibility.

George wrote:
I am an "elitist" because I advocate learning others' language? While you,
who refuse to,
would be what?

Language grows through neologisms of all sorts, including abbreviations,
pronounceable or not.

I'll go with Leo. If you won't learn from others, how do you fancy you know
so much?

Wow, and I used to think that everybody should have a hobby.

Bruce Barnett wrote:
I fixed your top-posting.

Mike Berger writes:

Bruce Barnett wrote:
I fixed your top-posting.
Wow, and I used to think that everybody should have a hobby.

I should have figured that being *polite* to someone who has been on
the net for 20 years and has yet to learn netiquette would be a waste of my time.

*plonk*

--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.

Mike Berger wrote:
Isn't clarity the point of communications? Why make it more

Sure, but every community has it's slang. It doesn't take long to pick
up the meaning. You can either google or ask. T'aint no big thang.


obscure than necessary? It's also very selfish and ethnocentric,
since this newsgroup encompasses a worldwide community. It's
enough that we force everybody to use English. We shouldn't

Oh poppycock. Nobody is forcing anybody to post in English. Just so
happens that this news group was created by Americans so it's in
English. There's plenty of other news groups out there in other
languages. I stumbled into a German one once. Didn't hang out long but
certainly didn't think it selfish or ethnocentric that they weren't
posting in a language that I speak. Non-english speakers are more than
welcome to start a turning newsgroup in whatever language they want.


also force them to learn silly jargon... unless they're
middle school kids using ICQ.

ICQ? ICQ? Oh no, not another TLA!!!!

Sheesh. Some folks would complain if you hung 'em w/a new rope...

....Kevin
--
Kevin Miller
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
Registered Linux User No: 307357

In article ,
Mike Berger wrote:

Then there's the ambiguity. Some of us have more than one interest.
While you might think SCMS is a sliding compound miter saw, most of
the world (that is familiar with the term) knows it as the
Serial Copying Management System. And why do some of you need
row address strobes (RAS) in your shops? Just what are you
refreshing? If you use TS for table saw, how can TM (t) be
tape measure? Shouldn't it be table miter?

Been posting to the "wreck" for... oh,what's it been... 8 years, maybe.
And, to this day I still read WW2 as World War 2. Not that I had any
experience with the Great One, just that's what's ingrained in my brain
cells. (For those not knowing, WW2 refers to the Forrest Woodworker 2
saw blade.)

--
Owen Lowe

Northwest Woodturners
Pacific Northwest Woodturning Guild
___
Tips fer Turnin': Place a sign, easily seen as you switch on your lathe, warning you to remove any and all rings from your fingers. Called degloving, extended hardware can grab your ring and rip it off your finger. A pic for the strong of stomach: www.itim.nsw.gov.au/go/objectid/2A3AC703-1321-1C29-70B067DC88E16BFC/index.cfm

Besides, rings can easily mar the surface of a turning as you check for finished smoothness.