Oh Dear, The End Is Nigh.

[Red Yaris 54]

As can clearly be seen from the above off topic discussions, the use of abbreviations within the forum can lead to confusion.

It is good forum ettiquette if useing abbreviations in a forum post to insert the full wording in parenthesis after the first use of the abbreviation.

It should not be necessary for members to have to "Google" to discover what the abbreviations mean.

My initial request not to use abbreviations within forum discussions without clarification still stands :)

[timberwolf]

Red Yaris 54, are you referring just to internet abbreviations? The car industry is no stranger to abbreviations, I remember having to learn lots of abbreviations when I was looking for my first car.

[timberwolf]

What He Said

Is that all? What a disappointment.

Thanks Rob for enlightening me.

When I was first exposed to online discussion forums, we used to use AOL, which meant much that same thing, and if you search for it you'll probably be none the wiser.

I always thought AOL meant America On Line - Is it still around? It was once very popular.

It does, although we had a less flattering substitution for the A. One of the problems with AOL was that it was, as you say, very popular and it attracted a lot of new users. It was very common for AOL users to post message saying "Me too" and adding nothing else to the conversation. So someone, started using AOL to mean "Me too", it was less letters to type, and it was probably meant as an insult at the same time.

There are certain abbreviations that I find unnatural to say, WHS being one of them, these days I thought people used "+1", and it saves one character - it still adds very little to any conversation though IMHO (In my humble opinion).

In the days when I first used a teleprinter, about 1947, the common "me too" or "I agree" abbreviation was DITTO and that has very ancient roots, going right back to Latin. So this abbreviation lark has been around for some time.

About forty years later, I started my career using IBM 1052 Teletypes.

[Red Yaris 54]

Red Yaris 54, are you referring just to internet abbreviations? The car industry is no stranger to abbreviations, I remember having to learn lots of abbreviations when I was looking for my first car.

I refer to all abbreviations when used on the TOC (Toyota Owners Club) Forum

Many forum users are on here to gain knowledge about their cars and may find it confusing and rather daunting when faced with replies containing unexplained abbreviations

As the forum exists to benefit all Toyota owners or potential owners it is in all of our interests to avoid the use of potentially confusing abbreviations without an explaination

Let us try to avoid alienating some of our less abbreviation aware members :)

[Duffryn]

Well, I had always thought IMHO meant "in my honest opinion"!

Seems RY (Red Yaris) 54 could be right then ;)!