BS: transpond acronyms

Subject: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:41 PM

I just read a mystery story (Power on Her Own, by Judith Cutler) set in Birmingham, England. Who can explain these acronyms.

A minister's wife could get GNVQ'd in tea making.

The floor's only staying up with faith and friction. They haven't put the RSJ underneath yet!

...I'd rather have the tackiest MFI than that.

She fell for the ICC interior, suave and elegant...

Got a GCSE in swearing, I sometimes think.

My God you look absolutely stunning?

You don't think it's OTT?

They'd met socially on an OU psychology course.
=================
I had an interesting thought. Acronyms show us what parts in our life are changing the most.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 02:59 PM

RSJ in that context is likely a rolled steel joist, a type of I-beam.

OTT is probably over the top.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 03:04 PM

-General National Vocational Qualification
-Rolled Steel Joist
-MFI was a cheap furniture store. (Initials of founder's wife apparently)
-International Colour Consortium (?)
-General Certificate in Secondary Education
-Over The Top
-Open University

(50% I knew, 50% googled)

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 03:06 PM

"A General National Vocational Qualifications, or GNVQ, was a certificate of vocational education in the United Kingdom. The last GNVQs were awarded in 2007. The qualifications relate to occupational areas in general, rather than any specific job. They could be taken in a wide range of subjects."

"General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE)"

Both from the www.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,HuwG at work
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 03:11 PM

GNVQ = General National Vocational Qualification
RSJ = Rigid Steel Joist (Iris Jay, the builder's friend)
MFI = presumably refers to a former furniture and decorating chain (Tacky? They were vomit-inducing)
ICC = not sure. Wikipedia suggests lots of organisations with these initials.
GCSE = General Certificate of Secondary Education
OTT = Over The Top, indeed.
OU   = Open University

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Megan L
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 03:19 PM

depending on when the story was written if it was after 1991 ICC related to Birmingham could refer to the Birmingham International Conference Centre usually just referred to as the ICC

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: mayomick
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:09 PM

transpond transpond

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: mayomick
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:10 PM

over the pond?

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 06:29 PM

Pedant's corner: not one single example in the OP is an acronym. There are acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms. Whilst there may be some scope for overlap, an acronym must be a construction that may be pronounced as a word. Aids, NATO, laser, radar, ATOS are acronyms. The distinction is worth preserving.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 10:49 PM

Oh sure, I forgot that an acronym is supposed to be pronounceable.

I wonder if the GSCE is like America's GED, which is a test a high-school dropout can take to show that s/he has become as educated as a high school graduate. GED is not an acronym.

The ICC is probably what Megan said, because the story was set in Birmingham.

Re RSJ: actually, it's hard to imagine a steel joist that wouldn't be rigid. We call them I-beams. (based on the cross section) There are also H-beams.

I thought MFI would be something like "Molded, Fibrous Implements."

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 11:49 PM

"I wonder if the GSCE is like America's GED, which is a test a high-school dropout can take to show that s/he has become as educated as a high school graduate."

No. It's the set of examinations taken by all school students in the final year of their compulsory school career, i.e. in year 12.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 02:13 AM

MFI was named after what you needed if you bought their furniture -

More Fire Insurance

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 05:49 AM

GCSE = General Certificate of Secondary Education, iirc.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 05:57 AM

-MFI was a cheap furniture store. (Initials of founder's wife apparently)
made for idiots

It was a sort of ersatz Ikea.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 09:04 AM

Reminds me of a comedy sketch many years ago which ended with three spies appearing. Two step out of cupboards announcing themselves as KGB and CIA, the third cupboard falls apart and the spie announces MFI.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,Sol
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 10:29 AM

I'm pretty sure it's Rolled Steel Joist not 'Rigid'

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Oct 15 - 08:48 PM

Correct, Sol. You beat me to it.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 05:39 AM

the difference between Girder and Joist?

Girder wrote Faust and Joist wrote Ulysses


I'll get my toga.............

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 07:32 AM

Sounds like one of Humph's lines from ISIHAC

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 08:48 AM

ISIHAC? Haven't a clue what that means :-)

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 09:42 AM

Good one, Mr. Red.

Yes, what is ISIHAC?

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 09:46 AM

"I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue" -- long-since very entertaining Radio 4 comedy programme iirc -- or was it indeed so long ago that it was still the BBC Home Service!?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 10:49 AM

"I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue" the antidote to panel games. Largely scripted panel game that takes the rise out of the generel idea of radio panel games. eg

the Uxbridge English Dictionary - definitions of words.
One Song to the Tune of Another - totally unsuitable pairings.
and there is always
"Mornington Crescent" based on the London Underground map, getting from one station to Mornington Crescent avoiding obscure undefined rules. Based on a station that for most of the programme's life was (an in joke) shut!

Not currently being broadcast but it will sometime soon see bbc.co.uk iPlayer. It was a spin-off from the comedy series "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" - anarchic sketch based show run by the Cambridge Footlights Crowd some of who became Monty Python. There I think we have a point of reference for our American cousins.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 03:29 PM

"Humph" being of course Humphrey Lyttelton, known earlier as a great jazz trumpeter/bandleader. This is now a music thread.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 04:19 PM

We were privileged to see Humph and his band in Exeter, only six weeks before he died. He came out to meet the audience in the interval and at the end of the concert, and he was up for chatting all night! We bought his book for my dad-in-law's 80th and he signed it and drew a little picture in it. He and the lads were in absolute top form. He was very funny too. He told a joke he said he'd got from Barry Cryer:

"Have you ever shoed a horse?"

"No, but I once told a pig to piss off."

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Oct 15 - 07:48 PM

faucet jousting?

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Oct 15 - 01:49 PM

MFI sold mainly MDF

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 01 Nov 15 - 07:55 AM

After Humph, "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" was revived with a series of guest presenters, of whom the most successful was Jack Dee.

Despite rumours that he and the BBC had fallen out over smutty "Samantha" jokes, according to the isihac website a new series is being recorded:

Friday 23rd October at Dorking Halls
Thursday 12th November at the Grand Opera House, York
Friday 11th December at the Grand Theatre Blackpool

(It doesn't say anything to suggest that Jack Dee is not still presenting the show.)

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 04:23 AM

They did have a series when Samantha couldn't do one. So Sven deputised. I heard the show.

Jimmy Handley on ITMA. TTFN and special initialisms just for each show. Phil Silvers was attuned to the style and to cultivate a British ordiance he used the device often. His version was BFN Bye For Now cf TaTa for Now.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 05:24 AM

Star of ITMA was Tommy Handley. Jimmy Hanley was another actor, who made quite a lot of films but unfortunately died quite young, I find from Wiki. He played a young soldier in Olivier's Henry V.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 08:35 AM

before my time. I claim the folk process.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 09:50 AM

Youth ith not alwayth an excuthe!

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Kampervan
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 03:51 PM

Haven't the faintest idea what ICC stands for, and I'm on the eastern side of the pond.



If the writer is so lax as to use these abbreviations without alluding to their meanings then I don't think that they are a particularly good writer!

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Nov 15 - 05:14 PM

Is someone who travels across the Atlantic a lot a transponder then?

Almost certainly the International Conference Centre, KV. Fond memories of manning a trade stand while pissed, like most of the other exhibitors :-)

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 02:39 AM

Wrong again, Moriarty. It's the International Convention Centre.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 02:43 AM

Ahhhhh. I must have been really pissed :-D

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,Mr Red sober
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 04:52 AM

As long as it wasn't yer trousers! But then what else would you do when in B'Ham? Fond memories of my youth living not 15 miles away.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 10:55 AM

"If the writer is so lax as to use these abbreviations without alluding to their meanings then I don't think that they are a particularly good writer!"

I disagree, Kampervan. People use initialisms all the time, and the author was after verisimilitude. Besides, it gives the chance to start fun threads like this one.

I appreciate it that nobody trotted out that tired old remark about the British and Americans being separated by a common language.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 11:32 AM

my favourite atm is LMF..

A modern version is Lazy Mutha F.....

But I prefer it's original World War 2 RAF meaning...

"Low/Lack [of] Moral Fibre"...

I proudly claim that as my personal motto and inscription for my coat of arms......




BTW... 'atm' in this context means 'at the moment' and not 'ass to mouth'... 😜

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 11:54 AM

I can't claim authorship for this, it is somebody's comment on a little flame war elsewhere about use of intitials in a post:

Then there's the PC PC who never types anything racist or sexist
into his PC.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 11:56 AM

Government employees may agree that some emails at work appear to be written in cytological code when in fact they are just compound sentences written entirely in acronyms.

Subject: RE: BS: transpond acronyms
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Nov 15 - 02:02 PM

BTW... 'atm' in this context means 'at the moment' and not 'ass to mouth'... 😜

& I thought it stood for "Hole In The Wall" machine!