Acronym soup for beginners

[ClearLife]

Why should beginners like myself have to put up with meaningless acronyms.

 

[Peace River]

Why should beginners like myself have to put up with meaningless acronyms.

I’m not sure what acronyms that you are frustrated with, but you may find this list of acronyms helpful. Please let us know if you have other questions or concerns.

 

[acro-ed]

This will help; @Seawitch put this together awhile back:

Acronyms, Abbreviations, Vocabulary, and Slang for the Reef Aquarist, Revised December 2018

The Pacific Ocean Photo is a royalty-free image from Pixabay. Okay, one more time. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Some years ago, Uninja, with the help of forum members Raggamuffin, Wy Renegade, Swannyson, Skinz78, Tabasco 1...

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As to why you should have to put up with it, I can't help there. Some of these things are simply abbreviated because it would be tedious to type out (ex. "RO" for "reverse osmosis"). I think most people are pretty friendly and would be happy to explain if you weren't sure.

Thanks,
Ed

 

[JPergamo]

The whole point of acronyms is that they mean something. You will pick them up in time.

 

[ClearLife]

I’m not sure what acronyms that you are frustrated with, but you may find this list of acronyms helpful. Please let us know if you have other questions or concerns.

Thanks for the list. That's not what I was hoping for, but it will help me catch up. Keep in mind, I'm not the only novice that doesn't know the lingo yet and it makes it unnecessarily difficult to research what UNLC means when all we want to do is read the posts of fellow reefers.

 

[Brandon Smith]

I realize it is frustrating, but every trade, corporations, all forms of government, and hobbies have acronyms. When I started using aquarium forums back in 2012, I was frustrated as well. It gets easier over time.

 

[Auquanut]

Why should beginners like myself have to put up with meaningless acronyms.

You bring up a good point. Over time, we kinda get used to using acronyms that are common in the hobby. I think we tend to forget that not everyone has been doing this for awhile. Unfortunately, you're probably going to encounter a lot of this. Don't be afraid to ask what something means. We've all been there, and have absolutely no problem spelling something out and explaining it. That's what this community is all about.

Edit: If it helps at all, I still have problems with some of the acronyms!

 

[Ranjib]

Why should beginners like myself have to put up with meaningless acronyms.

They are not deliberately designed artifacts. They are an outcome of communities evolving their communication to reduce time and some time to reduce friction in speaking. Some of the acronyms provide easier alternative for complicated scientific works. The surge in mobile devices have given a new rise in the acronyms, I think its due to the difficulty involved in typing in those mediums.
It's a general problem we face as species. As we evolve, our practices and communication gets more sophisticated and imposes steeper learning curves for the beginners.
I think what list is your best bet here, and I am thankful for those who take the time to construct it to make life easier for all of us.

 

[JPergamo]

I hate to sound callous, but maybe it's the FDNY fireman in me that's from the school of: we all paid our dues, stop complain and read and learn. God forbid people have humility without entitlement. We have all been there.

 

[ClearLife]

I hate to sound callous, but maybe it's the FDNY fireman in me that's from the school of: we all paid our dues, stop complain and read and learn. God forbid people have humility without entitlement. We have all been there.

My daddy always told me, "If you see something that isn't right, fix it", but I guess that doesn't always apply. I swear someone is going to accidentally start a nuclear war with the use of acronyms. One three letter acronym can have multiple meanings and that's unacceptable. People have become so lazy that they can't even get their point across for lack of communication skills. I certainly don't have to pay my dues to expect clear intellagable communications from you or anyone else. I have worked with fire departments for many years in my line of work and I know that fire fighters are constantly in training classes and part of that training is to be able to communicate well with others when fighting a fire and acronyms are definitely not used in a fire.

 

[Silver14SS]

You can try using the search function within the forum or Google to try and decipher what the acronyms mean. You may have also heard adages like "You can't always get what you want," acronyms are part of forums regardless of your personal dislike of them.

300 Plus Abbreviations & Acronyms Every Firefighter Should Know

Have you ever heard someone talk and you only comprehended a fraction of what they said? Steve Prziborowski is here to help.

www.firehouse.com

Commonly Used Fire Service Acronyms

FIre service and firefighter terms and acronyms. Definitions of fire fighter terminology.

www.fire-fighter-exam.com

 

[ClearLife]

You can try using the search function within the forum or Google to try and decipher what the acronyms mean. You may have also heard adages like "You can't always get what you want," acronyms are part of forums regardless of your personal dislike of them.

300 Plus Abbreviations & Acronyms Every Firefighter Should Know

Have you ever heard someone talk and you only comprehended a fraction of what they said? Steve Prziborowski is here to help.

www.firehouse.com

Commonly Used Fire Service Acronyms

FIre service and firefighter terms and acronyms. Definitions of fire fighter terminology.

www.fire-fighter-exam.com

Thanks Silver. Very helpful. I hadn't thought of using the forum search function.

I just used the search function and all it does is show posts with the acronym in the post. I do have the list that Peace River provided. That will be very helpful.

 

[William Mumford]

Whenever someone uses an acronym. In a meeting at work everything after the acronym get used I do not pay attention to because I try to make new acronyms the whole time in my head. Imo I know it is in my opinion but I make it if mom opens I munch oranges it gets crazy after a while.

 

[ZoWhat]

I'm with ya....

I've been reefing for 15yrs and just TODAY I keep reading this thread about the "ULNS" acronym.

It took me Googling it to figure out what they were talking about.

( the funny part is without knowing what ULNS was... I kept seeing "Univ of LasVegas Neuro Science" as the acronym in my minds eye. Crazy, right? Lololololololololol )

 

[ClearLife]

I appreciate the effort from all of you for helping me out. Thanks.

To the Forum moderators - If part of your mission statement is to attract new reef enthusiasts then please stop chasing them away. We come here to learn from the experts, but acronyms prevent us from understanding what the experts are saying. This forum is on acronym steroids. You could ask senior members to refrain from using them for the sake of your mission statement. Please.

 

[ZoWhat]

I appreciate the effort from all of you for helping me out. Thanks.

To the Forum moderators - If part of your mission statement is to attract new reef enthusiasts then please stop chasing them away. We come here to learn from the experts, but acronyms prevent us from understanding what the experts are saying. This forum is on acronym steroids. You could ask senior members to refrain from using them for the sake of your mission statement. Please.

All hobbies have their own language thru acroymns. just a fact of life. Unavoidable!

Even career-based jobs have their own acroymns. Look at these Fields and realize how heavily they are involved in their own language:

* Medical field
* Computer Network field
* Software programming field
* Insurance field
* Banking Finance field

What I'm saying is.....

....being apart of ANY specialized field (in business or hobby-based) you just gotta man-up and learn the "lingo"

If you don't understand something, Google it.

Practically everyone has a smartphone attached to their righthand most of their waking-life.

Never in history until.now can you Google something and pretty much have the answer within 30secs, with a smartphone in your hand.....just sayin'

I'd say 50% of the things I've learned from R2R, I had to first go read deeper about it thru different Google specialized articles.

Hth

 

[William Mumford]

All hobbies have their own language thru acroymns. just a fact of life. Unavoidable!

Even career-based jobs have their own acroymns. Look at these Fields and realize how heavily they are involved in their own language:

* Medical field
* Computer Network field
* Software programming field
* Insurance field
* Banking Finance field

What I'm saying is.....

....being apart of ANY specialized field (in business or hobby-based) you just gotta man-up and learn the "lingo"

If you don't understand something, Google it. Practically everyone has a smartphone attached to their righthand most of their waking-life.

Never in history until.now can you Google something and pretty much have the answer within 30secs, with a smartphone in your hand.....just sayin'

I'd say 50% of the things I've learned from R2R, I had to first go read deeper about it thru different Google specialized articles.

Hth

Including upkeep and maintenance and care for the tank. Research is a key element to this hobby and you will be googling alot.

 

[ClearLife]

Including upkeep and maintenance and care for the tank. Research is a key element to this hobby and you will be googling alot.

Googling UNLS and many other acronyms with Google result in articles that have nothing to do with reefing. Try it and you will see that googling reefing acronyms result in nothing about reefing.
I'm not a big fan of bad company policy that undermines their mission statement.

 

[William Mumford]

Googling UNLS and many other acronyms with Google result in articles that have nothing to do with reefing. Try it and you will see that googling reefing acronyms result in nothing about reefing.
I'm not a big fan of bad company policy that undermines their mission statement.

Ask the question man? the people arnt dbags on here. They understand how it can be hard to understand I can see if this was a place where no one wanted to help, but the people using them are not thinking, o yeah I'm going to make it so this guy has no idea what is going on.
It is annoying but once you learn them you will start to use them.

 

[Silver14SS]

Googling UNLS and many other acronyms with Google result in articles that have nothing to do with reefing. Try it and you will see that googling reefing acronyms result in nothing about reefing.
I'm not a big fan of bad company policy that undermines their mission statement.

LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You

For all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than to Google it for themselves.

lmgtfy.com

Adding site:reef2reef.com after your search term will restrict the results to this site, narrows the search a good bit.

Ask the question man? the people arnt dbags on here. They understand how it can be hard to understand I can see if this was a place where no one wanted to help, but the people using them are not thinking, o yeah I'm going to make it so this guy has no idea what is going on.
It is annoying but once you learn them you will start to use them.

Seriously, just ask if you don’t understand a specific acronym. Asking an entire forum to change for the preferences of one seems unlikely to happen.