Bing bing bing
Ack! That’s the interjection, not the abbreviation.
ack interjection
used to express mild alarm or dismay
ack abbreviation
acknowledge, acknowledgement
– Merriam-Webster
Side note: The Collins Dictionary–printed (and presumably thought up) in Glasgow, where they speak an occasionally intelligible variant of British English–identifies ack. as an American-English abbreviation. They present it with a period, which I have never seen in the wild, although I see its rationale.
Side-side note: TechTarget identifies ACK as a communication protocol.
In some digital communication protocols, ACK — short for acknowledgement — refers to a signal that a device sends to indicate that data has been received successfully.
Side-side-side note: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) assigned ACK as the code for Nantucket Memorial Airport. You might wonder how that happened and you would not be the only one. Here’s one seemingly sensible answer: IATA often uses the first three letters of the host-city name for its code, but N is reserved in the USA for military installations so for Nantucket they just used three other letters that were in the name. Consecutive letters are obviously better identifiers/evokers of the original name than are non-consecutive ones, but perhaps the City Parents objected to ANT and to UCK?
Life is just questions all the way down, isn’t it? This three-letters-of-the-host-city-name thing raises the question of why most Canadian airports have a code starting with a Y–for example, YVR (Vancouver) and YSJ (St. John)–even though most Canadian cities do not so start. Apparently these codes started life as two-letter Morse identifiers for stations on the transcontinental railway. When airports were established, they used the existing railway identifiers. If the airport site had a weather station–and most did–they added a Y-for-yes to the start. And when we got together with the Americans to set up international codes, we jointly realized (h–eh!/hey!) that very few American airport codes started with a Y, so what was already laid for Canada was played. And no, none of this explains why Edmonton (YEG) got that G, although it could be that whoever coded Winnipeg (YWG, entirely reasonably) just got carried away.
Anyway, we weren’t doing the abbreviation, we were doing the interjection. So let’s get back to it.
Bing bing bing
Mild-alarm-or-dismay! I try not to swerve into the steadily oncoming traffic on the 2-lane road that serves as Ottawa’s modest-to-the-point-of-insufficient link between YOW and the City proper, but my car is urgently signalling something wrong. Low hydraulic fluid? Low propulsive fluid?
I reflexively ease my foot off the gas, lowering my speed for no very obvious useful purpose, except in readiness to Do Something Suddenly Yet Safely, should Doing Something prove necessary. Then the penny drops: I know what this is, although it’s been several months since I last heard it. It’s a warning that the outside air temperature has just hit 4C/39F, cold enough that the road could be slippery from ice or frost. All right then. Consider me warned.
And consider how useful this discreet warning signal might be in other contexts. Am I about to put my foot in it, in a social situation?
Bing bing bing
Am I about to overdo my gardening and incur three-months-&-counting of tennis elbow, even with a conscientious adherence to the prescribed physio regime?
Bing bing bing
Am I about to eat one too many leftover Hallowe’en treats?
Bing bing bing
Sigh. So far, my life does not come equipped with any audible warning signals. In their absence, I guess I could do worse than to ease off the metaphorical gas pedal now and then anyway.
While your hop-scotching around the acronyms and abbreviations for airports and interjections may seem rambling or even random, it helps me to put on the brakes and slow down to more carefully examine some of the chaos that surrounds me. On the one hand, I begin to look for meaning and mending of a bright intellect in the incessant self-talk, instead of turning my back on the irritating “conversation.” I notice that the mood is no longer threatening or brutal but cheerful and almost humourous, which is at the borderline of normal integration speeds. When a sudden disappointment sends him into the backyard, where he vents, he soon returns indoors and reclaims his cheerful self-conversation. That, too, is close to normal. On the other hand, I notice the fraying of a brilliant intellect in verbal inconsistencies, long silences, faltering procedural memory, and missed words. I must lower my speed to be able to focus on the parts that remain whole fabric. In my experience, it is not at the highest speeds that insights emerge but in the slower, contemplative zone.
Laurna – If progress in mental health is anything like progress in learning, I’d expect (although I wouldn’t necessarily happily accept) a “ragged front” as well as lots of “two steps forward, one step back.” How lovely that you’re seeing signs of healing, even allowing for the caveats.
I never knew that ack or ack. was an abbreviation in actual language (as opposed to the plethora of digital abbreviations). Learn something every day.
Judith – I learned it from retired military guys, I think. I’d get an email response that just said “Ack” and wonder what had happened at their end to cut them off. 🙂 I don’t know how widely it’s used.
You’re away ahead of me, Isabel. I thought was up on stuff but, ach, not ack!
Tom
Tom – 🙂
So how do you write/spell the sound of a person making a wrong answer buzz?
Barbara – There’s a reddit thread on this very topic. One good suggestion: Me, I want to get a “b” sound in there – a bit like “brak” but harsh and guttural.
Reddit is becoming like Google — may not know everything, but has an opinion or suggestion on everything.
Barbara – Yes. And my Google searches now start off with an AI entry. We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
I notice that my crossword puzzles increasingly call for text-speak abbreviations. Or initialisms. Or whatever they are. As one who likes words in full, I find these crossword practices irritating. PO’d.
Jim T – I have a similar annoyance with informal abbreviations, like “beaut”, particularly in the Canuckle word game (a Canadian version of Wordle). Also, I take exception to French words in this English word game. I’m sure they care.
Isabel – if you take exception to French words creeping into an English word game, are you going to start calling the Governor General’s residence, Curtain Hall?
Personally, I take exception to the French translating the Latin words Nova Scotia into Nouvelle Ecosse, as opposed to leaving the Latin well enough alone.
John – It’s a case-by-case call, I find. I don’t object to English appropriating French words (a whole whack of our words have French origins, especially the high-falutin’ ones) but sometimes a word in the puzzle strikes me as not-English-dagnab-it. I have a vague feeling the offending word was “voila”.
Isabel – why YEG? Perhaps because YED was already assigned to the airport at Namao, which was built long before Leduc International. Based on my research, the “G” appears to be completely random because YED was already taken.
John – Ah, Namao got the D. That makes sense. Thanks! I’d like to have been in the room when they were deciding what to stick the Leduc airport with.