Kai Henningsen wrote: 
 > 
 > n03W28+mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk (Markus Kuhn)  wrote on 08.07.03 in 
 beeie1$ohe$2@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>: 
 > 
 > > group purpose, because almost all are for discussion. The "std" 
 > > is frequently missinterpreted as standing for "students", therefore 
 > 
 > It is? That's news to me, and I've read comp.std groups for a while now. 
 > 
  
 When I first saw std what occured to me was (sexual transmitted diease) 
 and could only relate it to comp as to discussion of viruses of 
 computers (based on name space alone).  The convention of TLA that 
 generally did not include vowels can have resulted in std neaning 
 STuDents to some and STaDards to others.  In general the common advice 
 is to avoid abverations because of posible confusion as to what is being 
 refered to by other users.  I get a feel that few (if any) would look to 
 comp.std.* for viruses, there though remains how much cross over of 
 users of the two different quickly inferred word intended.  In this case 
 I do not believe that there would be much of a misunderstanding.  The 
 ones that tend to read comp.* are interested in and hopefully learn some 
 of the older TLA.  Prehaps some computer students might be confused for 
 a short period of time when subscribing to a group, however they should 
 be in the process of lreaning standards and such a group could aid thier 
 learning. 
  
  
 The same argument might apply to cli, this "geek talk" ;-) so while it 
 might look strange to some less involved with computer programing and 
 standards the problems might not be that great as a rec.std.* proposal 
 or a soc.std.* proposal, etc. 
  
  
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  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)