HPC

[Mart]

... except that they are abbreviations! E.g. a Quango is an acronym because you can say/pronounce it...

Well, if we are being unecessarily pedantic .....

I thought quango was a semi made up term (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation) back when the press and 'a bloke down the pub', where trying to complain about NDPB's and ASPB's (non deparmental public bodies / Assembly sponsored public bodies). But those terms don't sound bad (unlike quango), and most people couldn't even name an NDPB, but they all needed to be banned ...... not understanding the role they do, such as the Environment Agency etc.

NDPB isn't exactly pronounceable.

you could say that "unnecessarily pedantic" was a matter of taste anyway! I suspect that if you think a correction is necssary then by definition you are a pedant...
anyway, I found a definition online:

The word acronym typically applies when the resulting thing can be read as a word; for example, radar comes from "radio detection and ranging" and scuba comes from "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus." The word initialism only applies when the resulting thing is read as an abbreviation; for example DIY, which comes from "do it yourself," is pronounced by saying the names of the letters.

Hi, I think you missed the point, you were saying that quango was pronounceable, in order to correct Dan, and I was explaining that it is a made up (sort of) acronym, relating to NDPB's which isn't easily pronoucable. So just playfully correcting your correction. HTH.

[Mart]

TIL - another classic of the TLA genre

(TLA - three letter acronym!)

LOL.

Not quite a TLA, but one of my favourites is GIYF, since it's a great acronym, abreviation, acronym* to respond with if someone asks what your abreviation(s) means ..... assuming they have a sense of humour!

*Being Welsh, almost anything is pronounceable, it's just a question of having enough flem in your mouth, such as cwtch.

[dan_b]

Phlegm

[Mart]

Phlegm

Yep, bit of a hiccough(?) there, but how very dare you sir, my spellunking is near porfick ..... much of the tim.

[dan_b]

Hiccup is the correct and original spelling.

In the 18th century, it was altered to Hiccough as people thought, incorrectly, it was a cough-related reflex, but the pronunciation was kept the same as it was so familiar.

So hiccup is the proper way and hiccough is a temporary affectation which should be avoided.

[Mart]

"a temporary affectation which should be avoided." Sounds a bit like me.

Best not mention rooves then!

[Mart]

This is gonna shock everyone, but the cost of decommissioning Sellafield may go up?

Sellafield cleanup cost rises to £136bn amid tensions with Treasury

National Audit Office questions value for money as predicted bill for decommissioning increases by £21bn

The cost of cleaning up Sellafield is expected to spiral to £136bn and Europe’s biggest nuclear waste dump cannot show how it offers taxpayers value for money, the public spending watchdog has said.

[Moxi]

Ha ha that's the funniest thing I have read in ages!

Only the government could be so naïve as to think the budgets provided by the teams at Sellafield are anything better than informed guesses.

They could do worse than bus the whole of the house of commons up to the site and take everyone around the site and show them all the problems, not the VIP tour, I mean get them trained dressed and mask fit and show them the problems. Then they might get an idea of just how expensive the nuclear deterrent and power generation actually has been historically.

Dont get me wrong there's often been very wasteful projects but they are usually born of and impacted by managerial and political expediency rather than engineering and scientific error.

All they need to do to find "value" for money for the site is to contemplate what the impact would be of a fire, explosion or other catastrophic loss of containment at one of any number of decrepit facilities and how much that would subsequently cost to rectify - then the current guess on costs will look very reasonable!

If the treasury wants to get angry then they need to dig up Mr Attlee and Mrs Thatcher and have a very strong conversation because that's where the costs originated, its no good moaning at the present group of people wrestling with the national legacy issue.

Moxi

[nowty]

This is gonna shock everyone, but the cost of decommissioning Sellafield may go up?

Sellafield cleanup cost rises to £136bn amid tensions with Treasury

National Audit Office questions value for money as predicted bill for decommissioning increases by £21bn

The cost of cleaning up Sellafield is expected to spiral to £136bn and Europe’s biggest nuclear waste dump cannot show how it offers taxpayers value for money, the public spending watchdog has said.

Sounds like my 5 years of experience in the Nuclear Industry in the 80’s,

Europe’s most hazardous industrial site has previously been described by a former UK secretary of state as a “bottomless pit of hell, money and despair”.

I still get occasional nightmares where I am back working in some of the dirty buildings.

[Fintray]

If the treasury wants to get angry then they need to dig up Mr Attlee and Mrs Thatcher and have a very strong conversation because that's where the costs originated, its no good moaning at the present group of people wrestling with the national legacy issue.

Moxi

Nooo, I think a lot of people would agree she's in the best place for her, didn't they build a huge concrete cover over her, erm no that was Chernobyl, both pretty toxic...