Acronyms, TLAs, ETLAs & STLAs

An Acronym is a new word or pronounceable (and hence memorable) name coined from the first or first few letters or parts of a phrase. Therefor RADAR is an Acronym (because it's pronouncable) and MMSI is not (because it's not pronouncable). As mentioned last week, we use a lot of Acronyms in the RNLI, we also use a lot of TLAs (Three letter abreviations), ETLAs (Extended Three Letter Abreviations) and STLAs (Shortened Three Letter Abreviations)..........Whatever you call 'em, here are a few more courtesy of Dave:

ALB = All-weather Lifeboat
ILB = Inshore Lifeboat
COACS = Call Out and Communications System, this brings together our paging system with a few other elements like PMRs and mobiles.
DI = Divisional Inspector
DDI = Deputy Divisional Inspector
TDI = Training Divisional Inspector
DE = Divisional Engineer
DDE = Deputy Divisional Engineer
EPIRB = Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon
SART = Search and Rescue Transponder
GPS - Global Positioning System
DGPS = Differential Global Positioning System, this is a type of GPS which compares your receivers' position with a receiver at a known (fixed) point on land and hence removes a level of variable errors.

So there you have it!