Slang Terminology

To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Slang Terminology
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 15:41:19 -0600
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

----------
From:  Vivian [SMTP:V.C.Watts-at-btinternet-dot-com]
Sent:  Sunday, March 08, 1998 7:33 AM
To:  Tesla List
Subject:  Re: Slang Terminology

>From:  Robert W. Stephens [SMTP:rwstephens-at-headwaters-dot-com]
>Sent:  Wednesday, March 04, 1998 10:53 AM
>To:  Tesla List
>Subject:  Re: Slang Terminology
>
>Exactly!  My point however is simply one born of respect and a wish
>to avoid confusion. New professions that spring up should invent their own
>slang terminology and not do a cheap and lazy rip-off of someone
>else's time honoured phrase or achronym that has been in general use for
longer
>than their own newbie occupation, and which is commonly understood to mean
>something entirely different than the new use.
>

I think Robert you will be fighting a loosing battle.  I don't think this
sort of thing is deliberate but done out of ignorance of other professions.
In the 60's to me tranny meant transistor radio and was used by the
population at large.

To take this a stage further, having studied electrical engineering as my
profession it becomes second nature to think of the behaviour of
capacitors,inductors and resistors. You can spend years at college studying
the maths associated with the forces on these items and learning the
terminology to communicate your understanding.  However if you branch out to
other disciplines such as mechanical engineering you begin to realise that
mass, springs and dampers have exactly the same properties.  Furthermore you
can transpose the maths almost directly but a whole living can be made
clouded in the different terminology.

Viv Watts UK.