Fail Geekhacker moment

[jooks1184]

So I was reading a listing in the classifieds when I came across the term "CONUS." I've seen this term used pretty frequently, yet I didn't know what it meant. I tried googling it a few minutes ago and saw a wiki entry for some sea creature or something. That didn't make sense to me so after giving it some thought, I finally realized it means CONtinental US.

  I'll take my fail sandwich with a side of fail fries ty.

[1395985]

Abbreviations that are not immediately obvious are laziness on the part of the creator.

[Playtrumpet]

You don't even wanna know what I used to think 'doubleshot' meant..

[reaper]

..and saw a wiki entry for some sea creature or something.

:rofl:

We have a separate group buy for that.

[1395985]

You don't even wanna know what I used to think 'doubleshot' meant..

You're right. I don't. If an American coined the phrase, it's going to be either:

1/ Gross
2/ Grossly over-used
3/ Full of gross spelling errors
4/ Possibly all the above

[keyboardlover]

Pass the failsauce!

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

[jwaz]

I always thought it was "Contiguous United States"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States
"CONUS, a technical term used by the U.S. Department of Defense and General Services Administration, has been defined both as the continental United States, and as the 48 contiguous states."

according to that it also could mean coterminous U.S. and conterminous U.S...

[lorem3k]

Abbreviations that are not immediately obvious are laziness on the part of the creator.

CONUS is a pretty common abbreviation.

[rknize]

I know it, but it's not all that common.  There is a glossary buried in a Wiki somewhere.  It's not very complete, but maybe this belongs there.

[hashbaz]

It is common and quite old, and is just one of many terms and abbreviations to come up to speed on around here.

[WRXChris]

You're right. I don't. If an American coined the phrase, it's going to be either:

1/ Gross
2/ Grossly over-used
3/ Full of gross spelling errors
4/ Possibly all the above

What sparked the anti-American sentiment?  I mean I generally agree with your statement, but at the same time I am grossly offended by your assumption that all Americans are like this.  Isn't GH a place where enlightened folks from around the world meet to discuss our similar interests, differences aside??

[hashbaz]

The only thing more annoying than Americans is blind anti-American sentiment.

[keyboardnoob]

What sparked the anti-American sentiment?  I mean I generally agree with your statement, but at the same time I am grossly offended by your assumption that all Americans are like this.  Isn't GH a place where enlightened folks from around the world meet to discuss our similar interests, differences aside??

I'd say ignorance mostly and seeing from his other posts he's just a **** in general.

[fohat.digs]

I often ask my 14-year-old daughter what abbreviations mean.

Shorthand is good but can be very confusing.

I worked for DHS/FEMA, and the official abbreviation list, I kid you not, is 78 pages long.

Not 78 entries, 78 pages.

[alaricljs]

I work for a large software company, and they actually maintain an acronym dictionary for purely internal stuff.  It's several thousand entries and does not include anything not company related like SDK or DLL.

[captain]

What kind of doubleshot failsauce do you want on your CONUS?  You want fries within that?

Contiguous US is the only one that makes sense. Alaska and Hawaii are on the North American continent, so that is the entire USA. At least until they annex the Middle East!

[jwaz]

I work for a large software company, and they actually maintain an acronym dictionary for purely internal stuff.  It's several thousand entries and does not include anything not company related like SDK or DLL.

Boeing did the same thing. Too many acronyms for their own good IMHO