Stop making up acronyms, I beg you.

[Henry-F]

The very fact we participate on an Internet forum makes us knobs in the eyes of many people. In my case I would argue that I'm actually a pretty well rounded guy and I'm sure most of you would do the same. Certainly when our number is called and we go to meet our maker or be reborn as rocks, snails, elephants or earthworms I trust our participation on Pistonheads won't count against us. I would hate to think I passed up the chance of being the next Ron Jeremy for the sake of a few keyboard strokes.

But there is a disease spreading through this forum which could well turn the tide of opinion against us. Acronyms which are seemingly made up on a whim. Theres one floating around at the moment concerning "993 SC conversions". Now the SC has been around for some 35 years and whilst it wouldn't be something I'd do myself you can't but marvel at the technical achievement of someone who has managed to squeeze a 993 engine into his or her (former) 3.0 SC.

But it turns out the SC doesn't refer to the SC we all know and love. No, it's short for super charger. There is even someone in the thread who appears to have an SC with. 993 engine in it, so reading his posts you're totally confused, you don't your SC from your SC.

I know it's great to feel part of a special club with its own code but come on chaps, how old are we? Next we'll be getting Ted and Paul to contact Clarkes in the hope they can make special shoes for us all with a decoding kit hidden within the in-sole. They could even have the Pistonheads logo embossed on the heel so we leave little Pistonheads footprints when we walk.

I know there are occasions when acronyms save time but not in the title of the thread surely. Next we'll all be typing in textual gr8.

A New Year's resolution perhaps?

All the best, and as ever.......

Henry

[Henry-F]

And I still haven't got a clue what IBS or ISV refer to in the context of Porsches.

Acronyms or initialisations shouldn't make it hard for people. I've seen help asked for on here using acronyms and great advice being missed because those in the know simply didn't realise what was being asked.

In the context of a Porsche forum SC refers to the 1978-1983 generation of Porsche 911s. It always has and always will.

If people will insist on inventing phrases can I suggest that in the title at least they use the correct terminology, such as Idle stabilisation valve in order to include as many people as possible in the debate.

Henry

[Henry-F]

It should have read 993 super charged conversions.

As for my user name, come on guys. Since when is a user name someone's actual name? Compared to 99% of usernames on here I'd say Henry-F is pretty transparent. Marcus isn't actually a goose for, although after a bit of Christmas good living....

Similarly I'm assuming "Superblower" is neither a champion at providing oral relief nor called P on his / her passport.


As always


Henry.

[Henry-F]

BertBert said:

This really isn't a very convincing rant at all. If you can't be arsed to apply the tiniest bit of brain power to reading stuff, then you'd be better off staying in bed. I mean who gives a(n) FF about a slightly confusing acronym apart from H-F?

BB

I'm not sure I'm the only person who ends up scratching their heads on a fairly regular basis. A lot of the head scratchers are probably a bit afraid to raise the subject for fear of being labled stupid and not knowledgable. Maybe there are times, this occasion being one of them, when I feel my knowledge allows me to raise a point without beingng accused of being foolish. I hope that doesn't come across as arrogance, more a reflection of my time involved in the Porsche product.

As for CCTV, I don't think there can be many people on the planet who are not familiar with the phrase. Dictionaries list CCTV. The same will not be true of the initialisms to which I refer. I can't imagine ISV for example being listed. Even allowing Google to be my friend didn't throw any light.

Henry