RE: Acronyms

[morgyn -at- mars -dot- superlink -dot- net]

I don't think SME is confined to the tech writer community. I first 
encountered it when talking to programmers/developers; that was 
how they referred to themselves. Furthermore, they (and I) 
pronounce the word as 'Smee', like the pirate from Peter Pan. So 
it's only 1-syllable long and not 3.

On 13 Mar 2001, at 8:56, Christi Carew wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> IT isn't the only area. TW <grin> are as much at fault. I was talking with
> my hubby the other day and I mentioned talking to an SME. He said "what?"
> And so I explained it to him. He couldn't believe we had an acronym for
> that. "Why don't you just say expert? Isn't is clear that you'd only ask an
> expert in the field you inquiring about? And 'expert' is fewer syllables
> than 'SME'! Jeesh!" Needless to say he went on about how tech writers are
> merely expanding the acronym universe. And after I thought about it, he
> sounded kinda right. Why do we need an acronym for expert? And the acronym
> is one that only other tech writers usually understand. Why make it more
> convoluted?
> 
> Christi Carew

Lin

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Power Corrupts.
Study Hard. Be Evil.

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