July 31, 2007
PTL
Although I’m a fairly new member in Toastmasters International, I accepted the position of Area Governor for our district. I’m obligated for one year and I guarantee it will take me that long to learn the meaning of all the acronyms in the leader’s guide. I think they used the whole alphabet in abbreviating titles and programs for the individual, the club, the area and the district. I’m going to need either a decoder or a cheat sheet in order to speak the language. I’m so glad the Apostle Paul didn’t know text messaging – shall we say PTL?
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Gail;
-----When it comes to recognition, I have a mind like a computer, unfortunately. You used to use the word verification option to block computer generated posts to your blog spot. Computers were unable to recognize the shapes of the characterized letters in the test. Likewise, I sometimes must take a piece of handwriting to Char or one of my daughters for decipherment. While reading it to me, they look at me kind of strange, “Dad! You’re supposed to be smarter than this!” Nor have I ever been very good at deciphering acronyms.
-----Although there is not much I have been able to do about deciphering handwriting, I am beginning to realize that folks who use lots of acronyms are not really encoding or deciphering them. That is not possible outside of context, and sometimes is not inside context either. PTL can mean “praise the Lord,” “plan the launch,” “prepare the lunch,” “pass the lard,” or you name it. Now, I am still learning to use context to decipher even normal speech, but PTL might even be difficult to decipher in a context where there is a bowl of lard on the counter just before lunch in the kitchen of a NASA mess hall preceding a planned flight. I am beginning to realize that folks approach acronyms just like vocabulary words - memorize them, know them, use them. Yuk.
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