The AM Forum

National Public Radio now says it wants to be known simply as NPR. The organization has quietly changed its name to its familiar initials. Much like the corporate names KFC, AARP, BP, AAA and AT&T, the initials now stand for the initials. "NPR is more modern, streamlined," says Vivian Schiller, NPR's chief executive. She points to other "re-brandings" by media organizations, such as Cable News Network, which has been plain old CNN for years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070704578.html

Or NBC, etc. When is the last time you heard, "This is the Columbia Broadcasting System"?  I think their official name is CBS Broadcasting Incorporated.

I thought most of that was really done to get out of some financial mess.  KFC said it was to get the "fried" out of the name. But in reality, The company was about done and the new name was a way to get out of debt.

C

 "  Duckspeak is a Newspeak term meaning literally to quack like a duck or to speak without thinking  "



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words


klc

MOTD
Why write complete words  ???
You need to try texting.

One way my kids earn my Ire is to use texting anacronyms in normal speach.  This is a certain way to get a lecture about not sounding like an idiot when you speak.  I also point out that telegraphers and radio operators were/have been doing that same thing for over a century now, so it's not so new.  (Tnx fer QSO OM es CUL 73 de KB1HYS K) However MOST of us don't use it in everyday speach, except for that HI HI group...

Name changes to re-image a company can only go so far.  

RJR Nabisco came about during the tobacco controversy of the 1980s, when RJ Reynolds had acquired a food asset and decided their emphasis should be on that instead of cigarettes.  The name caught on, regardless of whether it changed how the corporation was viewed.

On the other hand, few media outlets and the general public use "Beyond Petroleum,"  despite the fact it has been BP's official branding for about ten years now.

And the other day I saw a story where BWI airport, re-named from the old Friendship Airport to try and position itself as Baltimore-WASHINGTON International airport, still draws only 25% of its passenger base from the DC-area.

Among my favorite holdovers are International Business Machines and National Cash Register, and when we were on dialup I always said our internet service was coming from American Telephone & Telegraph, huh-HA !

Oh, and don't call it a Chevy, either.

I get this when I go to the site suggested Pete. I use a program call WOT for Firefox and IE. Keeps me out of bad sites.

[ "NPR is more modern, streamlined," says Vivian Schiller, NPR's chief executive. She points to other "re-brandings" by media organizations, such as Cable News Network, which has been plain old CNN for years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070704578.html


[/quote] Did you ever see a photo of Vivian Schiller? She looks like Mrs. Doubtfire. Doesn't mean anything; just an observation.

The name Nabisco used to be National Biscuit Company.  Interestingly, the word "biscuit" does not really mean the mushy non-yeast bread often served with sausage and gravy at breakfast.  The actual meaning of the term is hard crispy breads like saltines, which were the National Biscuit Company's original product.  The word comes from the French bis (once-again) and cuit (cooked), meaning "twice cooked". The second cooking is what produces the hard crispy consistency, as a second chemical reaction kicks in.  This is the same effect that makes toasted bread crispy at the surface. The Italian word is biscotti.

Other examples brand names shedding any actual meaning include Sonoco, which used to be Sunray Oil Company, A&P, which used to be The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, Woolco, which used to be Woolworth's and AAA, which used to be American Automobile Association.  I believe AARP may now just be AARP, not an abbreviation for American Association of Retired Persons, but I could be wrong on that.

Perhaps one could say that this phenomenon is fitting for corporate brand names.  In French and Italian, the suffix equivalent to the English "Inc", is S.A. (société anonyme), which very aptly describes the concept of the corporation.  It literally means "anonymous society", society in the sense of an association or enterprise. Corporations are now legally defined as anonymous persons, and are becoming less and less product-specific, hence names with no actual meaning.

It's even worse when a company dumbs down it's acronym...

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/03/sci_fi_channel_aims_to_shed_ge.php

I'm so glad I got rid of cable over a decade ago.  ::)

Yep, been cable-free here for about 10 years.  Don't miss it at all.

I had been noticing that the car guys sign off on Saturday with This is NPR and leave off the National Public Radio part.  Now I know why.

I had been puzzled by BWI airport.   I figured it was British West Indies but that didn't fit the context.   I'm at the point in life where these things are all background noise that I question for about two seconds before I move on to things that matter.

I had to wait at a stop sign in front of Lowe's yesterday evening while a cronologically adult male wandered across the drive way completely absorbed in poking keys on some hand-held gadget and not paying any attention to where he was and where he was going.   Just like some 10 year old kid with a new toy.   I wanted to tell him his daddy said he has to wait until he is in the store before he plays with his new toy.

A front page story in yesterday's New York Times said college kids now have no ability to distingush between plagarism and their own original words.  They think it is perfectly okay to cut and paste something off the internet word for word into something they are writing and use it.   They don't even realize there is something wrong with that.   To them, all internet content is this big free resource to use as they please.

QSL  QSO? HI HI FB OM.

Streamlined? Modern? How about faceless, meaningless?

An acquaintance of mine who built broadcast accessories in the 70s and 80s took advantage of just such a rebranding.

When the Radio Corporation of America, during the first part of its abrupt suicide and conversion into a low-status plastic badge on the worst sort of Asian electronics, abandoned their name and became just "RCA," he was able to grab the trademark and rename his company "The Radio Corporation of America."

So, in about 1983, WEAM (where I was the chief engineer) purchased from him a "Radio Corporation of America" dummy load for our 1972-vintage RCA BTA-10U2 transmitter.

That transmitter was interesting, by the way. With a modification kit from the factory, it was type-accepted for use at our 5 kW station, even though it was a 10 kW transmitter. It could produce considerably in excess of 190% modulation.


With all good wishes,


Kevin, WB4AIO.

QSL  QSO? HI HI FB OM

VFB OT, ur 5X9,  ge, gl  ss, cul om, GB MG,  qrZ  

Several importers of audio and other tubes have bought the names of legendary manufacturers, Mullard, Tung-Sol, Taylor. The "Tung-Sol" 6650s being sold on Ebay all seem to be made in 3rd world countries. Very annoying. Very easy to misrepresent. You now see Tung-Sol 'coke bottle' 6650s stamped, "Made in ______".  Problem is, they ain't Tung-Sols.

Brand names have become largely meaningless.  Some generic manufacturer in Asia makes the same product for several major brand names, with slightly different aesthetic features, and the companies put their own logo on them.  I found this out a couple of years ago when our reliable old Kitchenaid dishwasher finally crapped out after 20 years, and key replacement parts had been discontinued.  We went to find a new one, hopefully of  comparable quality to the old one, but every one, by every manufacturer including Kitchenaid, in USA and in Europe, was of the same crappy, flimsy design.  Even the mould marks on some of the plastic parts were identical.  So we finally settled on a medium grade one from Sears & Roebuck that actually cost less than our original one in terms of the buying power of inflated dollarettes, with hopes that it will last at least 5 years.

The silly thing regarding textspeak is that the textheads will come to a forum and ask a technical question, and use the abbreviated acronyms and words and punctualtionless paragraphs. This gives an unprofessional impression.

The first thing it does is trivialize the importance of the request because it was not important enough to be written in standard, and secondly it negatively impacts respect, if any, the person might gain from asking an otherwise competent question.

Then there are old farts who probably know the magic answers but won't try to read gibberish. Why should they have to work at reading it? It is polite to write so that as many people as possible can read your writing. (Yes I am guilty of some writing sins, and I apologize for using big words and old words but at least I'm not a hypocrite.)

Actually F.W. Woolworth got completely out of retail. It's last remnants were sold off and morphed in Foot Locker.

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

Remember brand names didn't exist before the industrial revolution. Change happens.

The industrial revolution is still going on. It just looks different.

So true.  The same effect happens with the spoken word.  Even highly intelligent people come off as idiots if they can't express their ideas clearly.  Things like slang, foul language, and certain self-imposed physical deformaties (tounge rings and laberttes make you sound like you have a mouth full of... something) all conspire to make a person sound like less than they are.

So much for putting the best foot forward...

Naw, it's long over, about right after WWII. We're in the middle of the computer revolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelBNtNm8l0

Not only that, but certain words and expressions have made their way into the mainstream, but nevertheless still sound just plain dumb.

A couple of my pet peeve examples include:

Do-able. What's wrong with the perfectly good and far more intelligent sounding English word feasible?

Another is the ham radio jargon word elmer. Makes me think of Elmer Fudd or some chubby guy with coke-bottle-lens glasses and IQ in the mid double-digits range. Mentor leaves an image more becoming to what we at least would like to see as the image of amateur radio.

Not as we knew them, at least. IIRC, Someone here in the US bought the original equipment used by Tung-Sol and moved it all to Russia where they are now (were?) made. Others had been making the 6550As for years, but folks wanted the coke bottle envelope look.

Those original 6550s are my favorite looking tube - very well made, with that stocky 'I mean business' look to them. It looks like an old ST 45 or such on steroids. 

In the past few years I've heard this one more and more - productize. I saw an even more hideous one the other day - solutionize!

And now everyone wants to talk about "issues", usually a misnomer for problems.

The one I dislike the most over GO FIGURE is a Near miss. Is this expression made to lessen the thought of catastrophic air plane collision?  How can you near miss anything? You never hear that expression used with train wreck.

Tranvestites with challenges, issues and "areas to work out" are people too..... :'(


The jargon that gets me has more of a technical slant. I realize everyone's not an engineer or technician, but when I hear the word, "amperage" used for current, it makes me cringe. It's sometimes followed up by the word "juice."   Example:  "That FET is not amperage-rated for that kind of capability and juice."  (I hear it often too - Gawd help me ... ;D)

 T

Or current flow.

Main Entry: am·per·age
Pronunciation: \ˈam-p(ə-)rij, -ˌpir-ij\
Function: noun
Date: 1893

: the strength of a current of electricity expressed in amperes

do·able  \ˈdü-ə-bəl\ adjective

issues > noun > a matter that is in dispute between two or more parties b (1) : a vital or unsettled matter <economic issues> (2) : concern, problem <I have issues with his behavior> c : the point at which an unsettled matter is ready for a decision <brought the matter to an issue>

I started hearing "productize" back in the late 70's and early 80's in our product and marketing meetings. It's a favorite in the marketing arena. Now the "ize" tag is used on all sorts of words.

We say Voltage, why not Amperage?

If you lack a real vocabulary, No Problem!! Just make up your own words to fill in the blank spaces.  As long as they sound good, no one will mind, in fact if they sound really good, others like yourself will take up the new word you've created!! If enough people use them they will eventually be added to the dictionary, ensuring your place in history...  ;D

It seems that there are groups of people who need to have new "Buzzwords" to rejunivate old ideas.

Lately a lot of process improvement stuff seems to have a Japanese tilt, the attitude being if a production philosophy comes from Japan, it must be great!  Like they have some ancient wisdom that we lack  ::)

Sounds too much like feeble. Not sure it sounds any more intelligent.

Don, have you been to a hamfest lately? Take a look at the crowd. Those are definitely Elmers roaming the aisles. Not Mentors or Maximillians.

It's amateur radio, not professional radio. I'm not at all bothered by what someone might think about the standing of our hobby. Most of this crowd is playing with technology and circuitry considered obsolete by the mainstream. It would be different if we were building the next generation space shuttle. Then we'd have to worry about impressing others.

mindshare
disintermediate cutting-edge deliverables
ahead of the curve
incentivize end-to-end e-business
low-hanging fruit
transform bleeding-edge web-readiness
leverage

       Don:  Forever a teacher  ::) ::) ::)

       Steves just shareing some of that "low-hanging fruit" ;D ;D ;D

I've never been wild about the term "elmer."  I have long ago forgotten the details but someone around 35-40 years ago published a cloying sentimental essay in QST about the ham who got him started and his name was Elmer something.   This got so many readers misty-eyed that someone wrote a wistful piece, maybe a letter to the editor, about it and the next thing you knew, everyone was calling the guy who gave them a novice test their "elmer."  Yech.   I never had a real "elmer," -- the guy who gave me my novice test was a great guy (now SK) but mostly I read and was a juvenile delinquent ham.  Still am.

That's probably more true with AM than with most other modes.

But many, if not most of us in the AM community are on the air by virtue of understanding what's inside the box, and fixing it when something goes wrong if we didn't design and build it ourselves.  Most of those "Elmers" you see roaming the aisles at hamfests are on the air by virtue of spending money to purchase boxes and gadgets of which many don't even have a clue to what is inside or how it works, and couldn't care less. And the same is true with the majority of the mainstream public playing with their iPads, gaming grade computers and other high-tech gadgets; they fall in this same exact category.

I'd like to think that the AM community is made up more of Maximillians than of Elmers. Even if our technology is "obsolete" by mainstream standards, we at least grasp the basic fundamentals of electricity, electronics and RF, which leaves a solid foundation on which to build knowledge and skills in the domains of "state of the fart" technology.

If you read any of the broadcast rags, you will regularly see laments over the dearth of competent engineers and technicians who are capable of working with RF. The technical schools that are turning out prospective broadcast engineers placed all the emphasis on digital and didn't even touch on RF.  When the present generation goes SK, who will keep the big transmitters on the air?  Many of those in middle age or approaching retirement who are working at the cutting edge of present day digital technology, got their start via amateur radio, then progressed to broadcast engineering or some other older analogue type of technology before they ventured into digital circuitry and software.

It's those "Elmers" who have turned amateur radio into a faintly embarrassing (http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1009851,00.html) hobby. I recall some time ago, a message was posted on one of the CW mailing lists, in which the author said he never told a new acquaintance that he was a ham raidio operator; he always said his hobby was "amateur telegraphy".

My favorite,

"close proximity"

An essay of interest,

"Politics and the English Language". George Orwell, 1946

found at     http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm


klc

past history
the future is ahead
small cadre
for free

boots on the ground
battle buddy
downrange

I've been watching WAY too much AFRTS lately

I just love it when I hear someone say that they "ohmed it out" to check continuity.
Also often hear "old" radio engineers talking about Viz Sware.  

Of course, if you really want to sound intelligent, you can use "pop" management terminology.  Throw around terms like proactive and root cause analysis.

I guess everyone has their favorite lingo

73,  Jack, W9GT

in the box
on the X

In the corpspeak realm:

     On a company-wide basis, mindshare (as the ball is now in our court) promotes deploying widely-distributed the next generation systems. In order to obtain the economically sound graphical user interfaces, we took a close look at a 90% solution to understand what it means. The protocols close the loop on the issue of the World-Wide Web, which leads us to believe that an effective user interface maintains an I/O intensive opportunity. Each and every one of you (as you will hear at the next Company dinner) must get up to speed on customer disclosure.  You should be thinking all of the time about implementing the high-payoff schedules worldwide.

Hey, I AM thinking about it all the time.  I could use a whirlwide high-payoff schedule in the box too! Where do I sign up?

Damn progressive smug people

Yeah, they probably run Flex radios  ;D

73,  Jack, W9GT

I have seen the terms "amperage" and "current flow" in old publications dating back to the 20s and 30s.

Current flow is kind of like wet water, frozen ice and hot heat.

We find it OK to say "voltage", but the equivalent term that would be analogous to current is "tension", as in high-tension power lines. I occasionally run into schematics, usually of early equipment, which use "+HT" instead of "B+".

Actually, voltage and amperage could be said to have more clarity in meaning since they are electricity-specific, while tension could refer to mechanical force and current could refer to the flow of a liquid.

Current flow is incorrect. Current does not flow - the water or electrons flow.

The Brits used HT instead of HV.

Potential or potential difference and pressure would also be possible analogs of current.


Tom, if olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Good points Don.

I have also seen the use of Tension in old schematics. Europeans also use the term, typically referring to residential and commercial electricity: "High-Tension transmission lines."

Another term to throw in there, is one I use with my students that just cannot grasp the concept of voltage and current: Potential. When voltage is described as potential or, more properly, potential difference, things seem to click.

I'm not sure if it's technically correct, but to me "potential difference" implies a difference in levels of static DC potential, as, for example, when you have a +300v power supply and a +500v one in the same rig, so there is a potential difference of 200 volts between the two B+ (or +HT) lines. Another example would be the voltage across a charged capacitor.  Potential means the potential to do work,  but once the task begins, the voltage may change abruptly, as would happen when you use a charged capacitor to heat up a resistor or to ignite a flash.

You can have a potential difference in other things besides electricity.  Water levels, for example.

Many other electrical phenomena have mechanical analogues.  One common example is reactance. If you drive a nail into a solid, secured board backed up by a massive stud, the hammer is working into a purely resistive load and the board doesn't "react"; all the energy expended goes into driving the nail.  If, OTOH, you try to drive a nail into a board between two widely separated studs, the board will be springy, or highly reactive. When you hit the nail with the hammer, the board springs back.  Only a partial component of the energy goes into driving the nail. The board "reacts" or springs back; and some of the energy is reflected back to the hammer. If the board is too springy, none of the energy goes into driving the nail, it just springs back and no work was done other than to overcome a small amount of friction.  We call this a purely reactive load with (negligible) resistive component.

Voltage is an SI derived unit is described as an electric potential difference, electromotive force. Using base SI units a Volt is m²·kg·s^-3·A^-1

Don, That is by far the absolute BEST analog of reactance that I have ever read.  That should be in the handbooks AC Theory section.

"Absolute Best"  ;D  I like it!

Functionality (not a word).

A real dumbed down phrase has come into use over the past few years, at least around here... "Real Feel" instead of "Wind Chill Factor".

And where the heck did Y-Fi come from for describing a local area wireless network?????

WiFi never meant anything.....

People mistakenly think it meant "Wireless Fidelity".

A term which was only used as a "what-if" statement drawn on the bar napkin.

Its function is as a noun. Why do you believe it's not a word?

Not that it's dumbed down, just a different term and quite descriptive: I pick up a radio station from Toronto from time to time, and the expression they use in their weather reports instead of "heat index" is "humidex".

A reasonably respected weather forecaster in Washington DC WRC TV4 used a term 'Humiture".
Fred

And Ethernet is neither ether nor net.

How about preplan, preboard, preheat, and prerecord, etc. Seems to me it's just plan, board, record.

It fell between the cracks. Really? Then it's on the floor. It should be fell into the cracks.

Hot water heater. Why heat it if it's already hot?

I like that one, Huz! PREHEAT.....  As you axed, how can you preheat something before you heat it?

You're right, Don. 
But the name Elmer isn't the cause of that.
It's the whole silly jargon thing that makes it murky what we do.

HAM radio ? Give me a break.  I loathe the term.

I try to use "radio hobbyist" or variations when I describe my activities to outsiders, and usually use the term "shortwave" since it's familiar and easy to grasp.

Boat anchors ?  Nah. That one does not work either.

I've got very little in common with contestors, Dog X-Ray people, CW ops, emergency whackers, packeteers, EchoLinkettes, but hope their parts of the hobby seem as interesting to outsiders as I hope our part can be.

The same words concept as you pre-ionize something such as the gas in the cavity of a TEA laser.

It's like priming the (whatever it is), like lighting the fuse, soft-start.

My pet peeve word is "irregardless". I bristle when ever I hear a person use that in a sentence.

Axe me a question and I'll axe one back.

Including my call sign.  ;D ;D