Hacker News Reader

Comment by sabbatic13 | Hacker News Reader

If you ever have studied comparative-historical linguistics, you know the abbreviation is frequent and necessary. So, the question is, what are the chances that someone familiar with it might use it and not even think about it? Your response assumed it was fully conscious. In any event, we're in the land of acronym pandemonium here, between CS, Data Science, Web terms, etc. PIE is a drop in a big bucket.

View on HN

Medical, wow. The same abbreviation is used within different sub specialities frequently. The fact that any patients leave any facility alive when their doctor sends them for a test, with a referral that spouts acronyms, abbreviations and generally aliterate scrawl is amazing. Eg. Phx COPD, Ca 10/12 Tx RT. C+ CT ?PE. And assuming you can read it, this is a good one. Some specialists even invent their own abbreviations, diligently reusing existing ones. And then they are surprised when asking for an MRA gets an MR angiogram rather than an MR arthrogram. Medical abbreviations must die.

The point is that it's highly likely the subset of Hacker News that has studied comparitive-historical linguistics is small, and that the usage of field-specific jargon is exclusionary and obfuscatory.

I studied rhetoric and technical communication for some time, and know quite well the usefulness of field-specific terminology for initiated readers. This, however, is not a comparitive-historical linguistics symposium and, as a multidisciplinary forum, I find no reason we should not to expect commentators to write to their actual audience.

Down-vote all you like, it doesn't change the fact that jargonistic writing for general audiences is rarely necessary and most often laziness.

In this case acronym is not being used jargonistically, it's being used to avoid writing out "Proto-Indo-European language" and perhaps more importantly acts as a useful indicator that this is not a novel concept in the field. It is seen frequently and unambiguously in any discussion about linguistics.

I recommend you avoid throwing around accusations of laziness: if you're genuinely not aware that PIE stands for Proto-Indo-European language, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIE acts as a perfectly good source.

(I hadn't intended to make this such a conversation, apologies to tikwidd for building a mountain...)

I've assistant edited academic journals and spent years as a copywriter/editor at a consulting firm that worked in many specialized industries. That accusation was leveled with purpose and from experience.

This is not only about the acronym above, though PIE does have many meanings[1]. That an acronym has a specific meaning to a specific group is why it is jargon. That it is "not a novel concept in the field" further reinforces that and is justification for writing it out, given the audience. It's really that simple.

The primary effect of acronyms on a non-indoctrinated audience is to reduce the writing's accessibility.

Simply, this is not a linguistics conference nor journal forum, and it is inappropriate to assume the folks here will know field specific acronyms.

1: http://www.allacronyms.com/PIE

What should people do? Write it out in full once then use the initialism? Once per post or per thread?

Does it make any difference that it is spelt in full in the linked question?

> From the top of my head, Danish "de" (practically never used), German "Sie", Chinese "您", French "vous", Spanish "usted" are a formal way of addressing someone, especially if one isn't familiar with the addressee. Did English ever have this? It sounds as though Proto-Indo-European might have had this (based on my 4 examples), but perhaps someone can enlighten me?

You think the use of PIE is bad, just wait until they bust out the ASCII IPA.

(I am thick as 2 short planks but I've heard of PIE. HN should be a place where people like me need to work hard to keep up.)

I think recognition of "PIE" as "Proto Indo European" in this context is a reasonable thing to expect of moderately sharp people with a liberal education.

Even the ones studying linguistics on some language other than English may not necessarily be used to some random TLA, in the same way most of people in the world would have no idea which topic in schools is called PE in some north american dialect.

What does the Texas Library Association have to do with it? ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com