Am I the only one that dislikes this practice??

I have mainly been a lurker for decades, having befriended Sam many years ago, through the occasion of me sending him numerous dvd's of old Celtics games.  I have always enjoyed reading the learned opinions of the many regulars on the board.

However, one practice which I find frustrating is that many posters do not bother to mention the name of the particular players that they are discussing, but rather just their initials.  For example, "The guys likely to see less minutes are GW, RL, EC, CE and BF.  I am assuming JP will be cut and KD will be moved."

Sometimes it takes me a while to figure this all out.  How much harder would it be to say "Horford" or "Al" instead of AH??

Am I the only one that feels this way??

Birnam

I am one of the main perpetrators.  And sometimes I even screw up the initials.  i.e.  EC should be EK.

I promise to make an effort to spell out names more often than not.  I only ask for one thing in return.  Come out from behind the curtain.  We enjoy participation.

birnam,

I agree.

Putting initials in a post instead of a name acts like a stop sign for the brain.  You cannot read smoothly, sentence to sentence. I constantly have to stop and think about who each guy is and then the message is just lost, and I walk away from the post.

Trust me, it gets worse as you age.

I'd rather type their whole name rather than just type initials, but that is not practical.  First or last name, or some kind of combo.  GWill, RWill, JRich, Al, Tatum, JBrown, Smaht, Romeo and the like.

Cooz, Russ, Bird, Max, McHale,

I would never refer to my favorite baseball player of all time as CY.  It's Yaz.
I would never refer to my favorite basketball player of all time as JH.  It's Hondo.
I would never refer to my favorite hockey player of all time as RH.  It's Bobby Orr (he gets BOTH names!).

I'm a Boomah Homah from Nahthen New England!

Anyway, to each their own, I guess.  Now try to figure out the letter shortcuts used in texts and blogs.  My go to is, "Hey Google! . . . What does ATM mean?".

I'm gonna go get my third cup of coffee ATM.  Hope to see you around.

gyso

gyso wrote:birnam,

I agree.

Putting initials in a post instead of a name acts like a stop sign for the brain.  You cannot read smoothly, sentence to sentence. I constantly have to stop and think about who each guy is and then the message is just lost, and I walk away from the post.

Trust me, it gets worse as you age.

I'd rather type their whole name rather than just type initials, but that is not practical.  First or last name, or some kind of combo.  GWill, RWill, JRich, Al, Tatum, JBrown, Smaht, Romeo and the like.

Cooz, Russ, Bird, Max, McHale,

I would never refer to my favorite baseball player of all time as CY.  It's Yaz.
I would never refer to my favorite basketball player of all time as JH.  It's Hondo.
I would never refer to my favorite hockey player of all time as RH.  It's Bobby Orr (he gets BOTH names!).

I'm a Boomah Homah from Nahthen New England!

Anyway, to each their own, I guess.  Now try to figure out the letter shortcuts used in texts and blogs.  My go to is, "Hey Google! . . . What does ATM mean?".

I'm gonna go get my third cup of coffee ATM.  Hope to see you around.

gyso

+1

Birnam,

I am sometimes referred to on this board as BH. I stop and wonder who they are referring to, and it's me and those are my initials. I admit, when I am posting from my phone I would prefer fewer keystrokes since it is awkward but I can suck it up a bit more.

Look at all the positive things that has happened when you stopped lurking and voiced your opinion. You may have started a movement...


Bob


.

On the game on, we’re typing fast, too many times typing and miss the next play….so then it’s a speed issue.

Birnam I think I know you, I bought a few DVD’s of old games from you, back then you went with a different name….

cowens/oldschool wrote:Birnam I think I know you, I bought a few DVD’s of old games from you, back then you went with a different name….

Correct Cow -- I remember that!!

I try hard, my problem is that I like to call them by their first names instead of their whole name or last name. At this age, you are lucky if I remember either one!!!!! I know, there are times when I see initials and sit here wondering who the hell they are talking about. Then I either figure it out, or forget about it!!!

Don't lurk, come and stay. New posters with different views are needed, we all seem to know what each other are going to say before we type it. Fresh views from Celtic lovers are welcome.

Rosalie (that is my issue, I never sign my name, but, these guys know it is me so I will sign it for you!!!)

Sign of the times. Emojis, BRB's, cell phones, etc. spill over onto and into the written word.

I found something else recently I didn't like about the way I write. I will write one sentence, then go to the next sentence and use an non-descriptive reference back to the first sentence with "this" or "they", etc. If your sentences have a tendency to goes on like mine every once and a while (haha, I know!!) then you as the reader have to slow down and might have trouble pairing up my non-descriptive with the right descriptive.

I've found now I catch myself more often than not doing that (using a non-descriptive) and then erasing the non-descriptive and restating the descriptive word(s) from the previous sentence. (See? I just did it again with "that" in the last sentence!!)

I sometimes forget reading is a two-way street. I want people to read what I write and hopefully find it clear, interesting and have them say something back. If I'm not writing something interesting or clear, odds are pretty good you won't write anything back!

For the reader and myself it makes things clearer to be repetitive. As a reader, I don't mind it unless it becomes overbearing or annoying.

They're not teaching any of this writing minutia to our children or children's children anyway. It's a dying art. Writing and speaking grammatically correct left the building with Elvis years ago.

I have always appreciated this site and more the people on it for allowing me to continually hone my writing skills, both good and bad.

As for the abbreviations on the players, perhaps once the roster is set we put together an official reference index. Clearly we know the starters and the immediate subs off the bench. It's 9-15 where I start getting foggy!

db