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Abbreviations

Saying goodbye to programming olympiads, 2017 world champion Ivan Belonogov, in particular, wrote: “There are always situations when a task does not enter, and you need to shove it into the TL or write a stress test to find an error, but this time there were too much".

In this phrase, I understood everything, except for the mysterious two letters: TL. And this despite the fact that I watched the entire broadcast from the World Cup final. Therefore, having reposted the letter on the Web, he asked for help in deciphering this abbreviation and soon received the answer: “Anatoly, Time Limit”.

Then I realized why watching the broadcast did not help me: they wrote “TL”, and not “TL” at all.

Try not to use abbreviations and abbreviations (except for generally accepted ones - such as, for example, the USSR, RF, Navy, Air Defense, Software, GOST) either in text or in speech. Already the abbreviation Air Force, as will be shown below, is dangerous to use.

Abbreviations are usually used by the military, as they apparently think that when they say "TAKR" (heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser) or simply a set of consonants - "KRBD" (long-range cruise missile), they are guarding the secrets of the country. And what is your goal, saying, for example, that you study at FITIP, which is actually the Faculty of Information Technology and Programming?

Know that the highest level of security can be achieved by issuing documents labeled “Burn Before Reading” and remember: “If you want to keep a secret, you must hide it from yourself” (Orwell).

Now I will tell the story about the above abbreviation. The young man showed me a text in Russian in which the BBC recommended 200 books to read. I thought that the leadership of the air force had nothing to do at all, and they set about educating the people. I made this suggestion to the young man. This time he was surprised and asked: “What does the air force have to do with it?” After a while, he understood everything and explained to me that this list was compiled by a broadcasting corporation from England, whose name has the same abbreviation, but in English.

I told this story at the defense of my dissertation on December 21, when I saw the familiar abbreviation "Air Force" in the presentation and asked the applicant what he meant: the Air Force or the British Broadcasting Corporation? It turned out, as I expected when asking this question, that it was neither one nor the other, but "Embedded Computing Systems". I had no choice but to let out a drawn-out “Ah-ah-ah…” From the reaction of the young man, it seemed to me that this story, in which he suddenly became a hero, would be remembered by him for a long time.

And further. What abbreviations are allowed in texts in Russian? Only "etc." etc.". No “because”, “i.e.” etc.

By the way, do not use the phrase "that is" - put a dash instead.

Remember that in texts numerals from zero to nine are written in words, and for everything counting, the word “number” is used, and for water or sand, for example, “amount”.

Do not forget that when you make nested lists, according to the rules of the Russian language, after the dot, they write with a capital letter. At the same time, so that they don’t write in GOST, you need to write like this - standards come and go, but the rules of the language remain. If you want to write in the lists with a small letter, use, for example, bullets.

Another story. A graduate student brought a dissertation on icebreaking topics, in which a couple of letters - LYA - were repeatedly used without decoding. When asked what they mean, he answered with surprise that everyone knows this - an ice box. Indeed, sailors may know, but I'm not a sailor. And I would go to them right away, but what do I have to do with it? I don’t want to feel like an idiot because of the inability of someone to write like a human being.

One of the most famous letters of Elon Musk had the subject: “I ban abbreviations, I got it.” He writes: “There is a growing tendency in the company to invent abbreviations. And there are times when a debility abbreviation is pronounced longer than the full name! When a thousand people write abbreviations, we will soon have to publish a thick dictionary for new employees. Nobody remembers all the abbreviations, and people don't want to look like fools at meetings, so they just sit there, not understanding anything. This practice must be stopped immediately. If the abbreviation is not approved by me personally, it should not be used in the company.

And our graduate Mikhail Medvinsky once wrote to me: “I remember very well how during the pre-defense of bachelor’s theses (probably in 2005) you asked: “The CCP is the Communist Party of China”? It turned out not ... So many years have passed, but I still remember... ” (“ PDA ”is a common abbreviation for the end of the past - the beginning of this century, means“ pocket PC ”- ed.).

Don't use corporate jargon. “In my early days at IBM, in meetings, I often had absolutely no idea what the speaker was talking about. I did not pretend: I stopped the speaker and asked him to say the same thing in simple words. It was annoying, but people quickly explained what and how. Then I issued a memorandum in which I canceled the internal jargon ” (Louis Gerstner, ex-president of IBM).

More and more often one hears from industry: "They can't speak, and they can't write." One can say about many young specialists in the words of Stanislav Lec (Polish writer - ed.): "Even in his silence there were grammatical errors."

Let me explain why you need to be able to write like a human being. “When choosing between several applicants for the same position, give preference to the one who can write better than others. To be able to write is to have a logical and clear mind that allows you to express your thoughts in an appropriate way, to make things understandable, to know what can be neglected ” (Freid, Hensson, authors of the book Rework. Business without prejudices"). And remember the words of the famous Soviet journalist Anatoly Agranovsky: "He who writes badly does not write badly, but thinks badly." Do not dismiss this phrase - in most cases it is true, and in "in reality, everything is worse than it actually is."

Don't let people who write poorly produce papers that many people should read. Remember that no one taught them to write clearly. They do not even understand that a normal person can read their writings, but not understand them. There is still a small category of "writers" who are theoretically able to create a coherent document, but understand that this requires a lot of work, and they are too lazy. Therefore, they simply serve the number.

Always remember that the readers have not done anything to you, and if you do not have obvious sadistic inclinations, then try not to torment them with your "creativity". Know that if the total labor intensity of the “write and read” process is 100%, then 90% of the labor intensity should be taken by the one who writes.

If he is unable or unwilling to do so, he must resign. I think that if such a proposal is implemented, then Russian office work will stop, but I am sure that there is no risk here, everything will remain unchanged.

“The Russian language and literature teaches how to think, and being able to think is more important than knowing anything. Throwing Russian and literature out of the course of study is the same as, suppose, a pilot does not care about physical training and a healthy lifestyle in general. I won’t fly with such a pilot” (Aleksey Ivanov, writer). It sounds nice, but if the person who wrote this does not have his own aircraft, then how, I wonder, will he be able to choose the right pilot for himself?

Remember that "he who thinks clearly, he clearly states" (Schopenhauer). “As a person writes, so he thinks, but there is no need to think with mistakes.” Write simply. “Blessed are those who write in plain language, for they will be read” (Miranda Seymour, English writer).

When I recently raised this issue in the text “ Something About Education ” and wrote that if many people were not taught to write Russian at school, then they should be taught at a university, one of the readers disagreed with me and noted that it’s too late to do this, since many people don’t know how to read properly, and you don’t need to touch them - let them live out their lives like that...

However, as one might assume, it is never too late to learn something important (for those who think so): for example, in the fifth year of the Mekhmat of Moscow State University there is a subject “Russian language and culture of speech”. Like this!