Resolving Accronym and Abbreviation Confusion.

There have been a number of cases where acronyms and abbreviations have caused confusion between two parks. Some posssible confusing cases are:

SFGA - Six Flags Great Adventure vs Six Flags Great America

PCW - Paramount Canada's Wonderland vs Paramount Carowinds

CP - Cedar Point vs Camden Park

DW - Dollywood vs Dutch Wonderland

CLP - Conneaut Lake Park vs Canobie Lake Park

LP - Lakemont Park vs Lakeside Park

My suggestions are:

SFGA means Six Flags Great Adventure (Better yet - lets use SFGAdv) and SFGAm means Six Flags Great America.

PCW means Paramount Canada's Wonderland and PCar means Paramount Carowinds.

CP means Cedar Point and CmP means Camden Park (better for now to just use the full name for Camden Park).

DW means Dollywood and DWL means Dutch Wonderland

CLP means Conneaut Lake Park and CL means Canobie Lake (Park) (better for now to spell out Canobie Lake unless you are focusing upon New England)

LmP means Lakemont Park and LsP means Lakeside Park (better for now to spell these both out for now since we dont mention these parks that often.) Also LG means Lagoon (Park) and LW means Lake Winnie. *** Edited 6/24/2006 12:34:28 PM UTC by Arthur Bahl*** *** Edited 6/24/2006 12:37:40 PM UTC by Arthur Bahl***

Or we could just spell out the names of the park.

Personally, I am getting kind of tired how everything in out society is starting to become abbreviated.

If you want a really good source of commonly accepted acronyms, try Screamscape. Unfortunately, Arthur that's the way the world works these days. I just bought a new Motorola V325 phone, and I'm reading some of the first pages where it describes what the phone can do.

For example on page 22 under system status indicators, it makes references to the following: SSL (in my world that stands for Solid State Logic, maker of finest high-end British mixing consoles), data call, tethered, or Embedded WAP/BREW Application. Those acronyms are never explained in the manual anywhere probably because the people who designed the phone also wrote the manual, which is a bad move.

Try getting into audio and synthesizers. The acronyms will make your brain hurt until you can figure out what they all stand for. Here's a short list: VST, VSTi, MIDI, LFO, HPF, AES/EBU, LPF, BP, SMPTE, Hz. Trust me, it gets a lot worse than that.

Even without abbreviations, there can be more than one park with the same name. For example, there is a Joyland in Kansas and another Joyland in the Texas Panhandle. Please specify the state or city when referring to either of these parks.

This topic comes up at least once a year. There are "generally accepted" abbreviations that IMHO do not cause any confusion.

Yes, "CP" could mean Cedar Point or Camden Park but it is the most-widely accepted acronym for Cedar Point and I would wager than 99% of enthusiasts would automatically think of Cedar Point when confronted with the abbreviation CP. Likewise in all my years online I've never seen CLP used for anything other than Conneaut Lake Park.

The error of using SFGA or PCW is usually only made by a newbie. I almost always see SFGAdv, SFGAm, PCar, and PCW.

Really though...how often are the abbreviations truly confusing? Rarely is "CLP" used without some other reference to either rides at the park [i.e. "Question about CLP's Blue Streak's trains"] or where the park is located [i.e. "Can Kennywood and CLP be done in a single day?"]. How often does one come across "DW" without any reference to Thunderhead, Tenn Tornado, or some other ride? And really how often are these abbreviations used outside of the enthusiast community?

The solution is not to always write out the park names in full. The easiet solution is simply to use abbreviations in context.

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James K said:
Or we could just spell out the names of the park.

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Exactly.

I don't think anyone says "I went to see-pee last week". So why should you type "CP" instead of "Cedar Point" ?

You have not spent any quality time standing in line with a group of enthusiasts, Belgian ;) Abbreviations are most definitely and quite frequently used in conversations, both verbal and written.

Agreed on Moosh with this. If you're really that confused by park and ride abbreviations, you probably just haven't read a lot of coaster message boards. Give it time.

I will give an example of going overboard, though.

Let's just say I used to work at a park that had a coaster called Cyclone and a water ride called Penguin's Blizzard River. And let's just say that Cyclone, being two syllables, we just called it Cyclone. And we called Penguin's Blizzard River "Blizzard." Fair enough, wouldn't you think? Anyway, say I worked with this fellow team lead, and about halfway through the season he decided to start calling Cyclone "Clone." And he started calling Blizzard "Blizz."

I found it just a bit astonishing. But it was fine, everybody else did, too, and we all had some good laughs about it when he wasn't around. Seriously though, there's a place to draw the line but after working with that guy, I don't think we've reached it.

Is it that much harder to use a few more keystrokes when we're already typing? Ok, yes, I don't know all these darn things. The sad part is...it's not like i'm a n00b.

I'm still not sure why it should be that hard to figure out, though. I mean...like Moosh said, its not like most of these abbreveations are just thrown out there with no context whatsoever.

Anyway...its kinda ingrained in the culture now. Its not gonna change.

Yeah, the accepted abbreviations are pretty well established within the community - not just here but among enthusiasts across the board. It's best to hang and learn - we were all there once. :)

I'm assuming this post was born from the constant requests for you to be more specific when you were using SFGA.

SFGAdv and SFGAm are already the accepted.

And yes, enthusiasts talk this way at each other. I belive it was the last podcast where I mentioned this very phenomenon. When I take non-enthusiasts to an event, the single thing they seem most taken by is the way we talk to each other using these abbreviations.

*** Edited 6/24/2006 6:02:42 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

I know the majority of them. It's just when you get into these small family owned places. Sometimes I never figure out what was takled about.

Marky Mark - if you have not done so already bookmark www.rcdb.com. That way when someone mentions, for example, the Crazy Mouse at DG instead of being confused you can go to the site, search for "crazy mouse" and scan the search results for the park that matches [which in this case would be Del Grosso's].

But that being said, I've been coaster boarding for 10 years now, and even *I* would have to think for a while after reading "DG."

Its not as if everybody knows every short hand term everytime without a little thought, so I agree Moosh, rcdb would be a good place for help as well.

Or if someone is being unclear you could just politely ask them what the heck they're talking about!

Try hanging around a Disney park fan board. After a while the abbreviations there will make your head spin. Anyone want to take a stab at WWTBAM:PI?

The majority of abbreviations around here are just major parks (i.e. Disney, Six Flags, Paramount, & Cedar Fair). Just make sure you stay tuned next session when PKI becomes KI, or TPFKAPKI. ;)

Also those Acronyms come in handy when titling new threads, and getting around hard to spell names like MF ;).

^The word Millennium is hard? And Force has got to be a word most second or third graders could spell, I would think.

Maybe he means GCI Millennium Flyers? Damn these abbreviations...they're so confusing! ;)

I'd have guessed Magnum Force. ;)