[Leica] more on the GF-1, the finder, and a portrait of an artist

[jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

2010-01-12-15:22:45 Sonny Carter:
> Yeah? so why don't we have an acronym for "optical viewfinder" that we all
> understand, instead of  typing it out throughout the thread?  Just asking 
> ..
> 
> and, what about Plastic Optical viewfinder, and maybe metal Oprtical
> viewfinder, and offset optical viewfinder?

Because acronyms for those phrases haven't organically come into
common use the way it's happened with others.

There are some acronyms which have spent enough time floating round in
common use that using them doesn't seem to be obfuscation -- just
concise writing.  Things like:

  AF for auto focus

  LUG for Leica Users Group

  LTM for Leica Thread Mount (I'd only use this [or, indeed, "LUG"] on
      the LUG, but here it's well-understood)

  yes, EVF for electronic viewfinder

"MF" used to be unambiguous (medium format), but since in these
newfangled times there've also come to be a number of people using MF to
mean "manual focus", I consider MF to be subject to misinterpretation
and no longer useful.

Now, interestingly, given my embrace of some acronyms, I absolutely
despise the text-messaging-style shortening/substitution of words as
done by far too many Kids Today ("U" for "you", "4" for "for" and the
like), and whenever I see those I really want to slap the user hard
enough to effect an entire change of worldview.

Go figure.

 -Jeff