Acronyms Initialisms Abbreviations and Variables

3 Oct 2014

A while back I started a list of abbreviations and acronyms that were being used in the questions and discussions on the E-14 web site. Since I often found myself not able to understand the context of the sentence until I googled the particular sequence of letters I felt that others might be having the same problem. My initial list was entered in the forum a couple months ago and has been viewed over 2000 times. I promised in the initial publication that I would update the list on the forum from time to time. Here is the updated list at this time. If anyone has suggestions for additional entries or if I have gotten any of the below listed wrong please let me know.

I have attached an Xcel .xlsx file for the list below in case you want to save it and make your own up dates.

John

This post was updated 6/9/16 JCW

8/20/2017

I have attached the latest list of Electronic Initialisms and Acronyms for those who are interested. There are about 750 entries in the list at this time.

John

Attachments:

Electronics Initialisms.xlsx

Top Comments

jw0752 over 8 years ago in reply to jc2048

Hi Jon,
Thanks to your additions the list is now over 800 entries. I reposted it above so what is there now has the duplicates removed and the new entries added.
John
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mcb1 over 8 years ago in reply to ntewinkel

*LOL = laughing out loud
Also Lot of Love ... apparently.
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jw0752 over 8 years ago in reply to jc2048

Thank You for the additions. I will post them in my list tonight.
John
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shabaz over 8 years ago in reply to jc2048

I agree, just use common-sense. I too wouldn't usually expand nF. I just meant that if it did need to be expanded, then the expansion should come before the acronym, not vice-versa, and there is a school of thought that nearly all should be expanded for a print article.
Some things sometimes look awkward, and I always expand, e.g. integrated circuit instead of IC which could look like collector current from a cursory glance, even with context.
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ntewinkel over 8 years ago in reply to jc2048

>But do we need to spell that out?
For this tech site, I don't think so. That gets much too wordy.

I think you have to consider the audience, and anyone on this site should be able to figure it out, even beginners.
A similar article written for a general newspaper (if that even makes sense) might have an inset explaining what a capacitor is and how to tell their ratings.

So then the next question is - where do we draw the line? PCB? SBC? MOV? - maybe it depends on frequency of use in regular conversations on the forum?
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