FAR or far

raider

raider

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doing a presentation; looking for a concensus - do you say the letters F-A-R or pronounce it like far? thanks!
 
raider said:
doing a presentation; looking for a concensus - do you say the letters F-A-R or pronounce it like far? thanks!
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Depends. Sometime it's the F-A-R's when discussing the regs, but usually the FAR-AIM when referring to the book. At least around here.
 
Eff, aaa,rrr

Actually, the FARs are actually Title 14 CFR, Part 91, etc.
 
I understand it's an acronym but I usually do as wabower mentioned - thanks all
 
raider said:
doing a presentation; looking for a concensus - do you say the letters F-A-R or pronounce it like far? thanks!
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Word. I don't believe I've ever heard it pronounced as three letters, but maybe I just knew what they meant and didn't care which.

Note that some audiences might confuse FAR for Federal Acquisition Regulations.
 
Whatever you do, define it first, give the generally recognised shorthand, then do what you usually do. Alone, I say F-A-R; if the group is pilots, FAR; if the group is non-pilots, F-A-R.
It does help if you give the overview Code of Federal Regulations. Your audience can google it. Both the FAR and AIM are available online. A link to them would be helpful too.
 
I've always said it as a word. Saves syllables, and I'm all about conservation.
 
Richard said:
MOS?
..
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Isn't that an Army one?

I will admit that there are a few that we don't speak as words...ship designations for example (CVN, DDG, LHD...etc), but by and large most acronyms are spoken as words.
 
It's a word, far. I thought we pronounced everything, such as Ee-puh (EPA) and vah-see (VASI).
 
It's also pronounced Fizz-Dough, not eff ess dee oh.
 
great points - appreciate it
 
Pi1otguy said:
It's a word, far. I thought we pronounced everything, such as Ee-puh (EPA)
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Ive never heard anyone pronounce the E-P-A as a word. And when do we pronounce V-O-R's or G-P-S as words, that just sounds stupid.
 
If its such a natural word as "far" is, I can't imagine a reason not to pronounce it
 
An instructor I took a BFR with looked at me funny when I pronounced VOR as a word. It never occurred to me that I shouldn't. I also pronounce FAR, but would spell out GPS. VASI and PAPI are words.
 
I note that T.I.T. Never seems to be pronounced as a word, probably to avoid the juvenile tittering ;) that would undoubtedly ensue.
 
bluesky74656 said:
An instructor I took a BFR with looked at me funny when I pronounced VOR as a word. It never occurred to me that I shouldn't. I also pronounce FAR, but would spell out GPS. VASI and PAPI are words.
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VOR is the main one that is easy to pronounce as a word but for some reason almost nobody does. :dunno:
 
I do, as part of VORTAC. I have never heard anyone call it a vee oh arrrrrrrrrr tee eh see
 
Fearless Tower said:
Richard said:
MOS?



..
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Isn't that an Army one?
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To me, that means Metal Oxide Semiconductor.
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This is like dealing with the military. The Army tends to pronounce their abreviations. The Air Force tends to spell them out. The Navy loves to make little contracted words.
The fun time is when the acronyms are used by multiple places. The Distributed Common Ground Station is called DEE-SIGS by the Army but DEE-SEE-GEE-ESS by the AF.
 
Most TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) are pronounced by spelling the letters and IIRC are properly called "initialisms" rather than acronyms so I guess it should really be TLI not TLA but I've never seen that designation either.

I suspect that this is because we're somehow conditioned to expect unfamiliar words to have at least four letters and/or that we're used to speaking the letters when there are three or less because we do that with people's initials.

For example, I've never heard TSA, FBI, USA, DOJ, PLA, LOA, PDA, POS, LPG, LNG, ETA, ETE, QNH, or NVG spoken as a word just to name a few TLAs (or TLIs). Of course, some of those are kinda hard to pronounce as words but that doesn't stop us from doing that with some equally difficult 4 and 5 letter combinations where we often just insert a vowel or two to make it sound like a word.

OTOH (one of the few four letter "initialisms", BTW) JAG appears to be generally spoken as a word and (at least according to the TV show) NCIS isn't. Go figure.
 
IIRC are properly called "initialisms"
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Actually, they are properly called Abbreviations. TLA works fine for that as well. But you're right, an abbreviation needs to be turned into an word to be an acronym. RADAR is an acronym. GPS is an abbreviation.
 
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raider said:
doing a presentation; looking for a concensus - do you say the letters F-A-R or pronounce it like far? thanks!
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Do you mean Federal Acquisition Regulations? If so, then that's FAR.

The term FAR has been used for "Federal Aviation Regulations" but not necessarily correct. The correct terminology is "14 CFR" followed by the part you are referencing, such as "Part 91".
 
I call the paper they leave by the hotel door the Yousa-tuda.
 
flyingron said:
Actually, they are properly called Abbreviations. TLA works fine for that as well. But you're right, an abbreviation needs to be turned into an word to be an acronym. RADAR is an acronym. GPS is an abbreviation.
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Merriam-Webster said:
Definition of INITIALISM: an abbreviation formed from initial letters

First Known Use of initialism: 1899
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Yes TLA and GPS are abbreviations but they both belong to a subset called initialisms.
 
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