I follow a few technical pages where the acronyms, abbreviations and jargon sometime seem to outnumber normal standard words. I know what they mean, and I still get confused. Pity the noob. Government acronyms are the worst, but ham radio folks might be a close second.
With language roots based in Morse code, hams fall into short acronyms all the time. Most common is the “Q” code. (Long predates the psycho mess many of us know as Q.) For example, hams don’t live in a house; it is instead their “QTH.”
Morse Code for laughter are the letters “hi” sent repeatedly and rapidly. It is odd to hear an old ham operator speaking a humorous story and actually saying “Hi Hi” instead of naturally laughing. Very strange, but some of these older operators seem to think in Morse Code. They’ve been pounding out 20-30 words a minute through their hands, some for more than 70 years, and the muscle memory is just part of who they are. By the way, hams don’t say goodbye; they say “73” which means “Best Regards.”
