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It is just a personal thing, but I hate the word "Togs" being used to describe photographers.
I find it demeaning and belittling of an activity we should all be proud to enjoy, especially on a photographic website.
Not typing the whole word is laziness, and is symptomatic of the modern ideal of dumbing down and trivialising everything, including our language.
The Prime Minister is not referred to as a "Min". A policeman is not referred to as a "Lic". An engineer is not colloquially called a "Gin" and an estate agent is not called a "tat" (many other things, but not that!! 
). "Togs" is a colloquialism for clothes.
Come on world: be proud to call yourselves PHOTOGRAPHERS!!
I hate the word tog too so your not alone.
Personally I think it's down to education, or the lack of.
Perhaps photography is too much to spell, my name is Ian and how can you shorten that, but guess what, all the infantile's in my school tried , by calling me E.
Shortening the Name of anything in my humble opinion is nothing short of Ignorant and rude and if your English you should go back to school and learn ENGLISH.
E.
I agree with Ade's comment; you're not going to get very far with anything that has to do with web-speak. I don't like it either, but now I use it myself. I don't agree with calling it laziness in this case, some of us aren't trained typists. It takes me awhile to type out a few lines.
Many professional photograhers are called pros and snappers in well respected magazines it's just the way it is today. I never used the word tog untl I'd seen it on this site.
Quote: I hate the word tog too so your not alone.
Personally I think it's down to education, or the lack of.
Perhaps photography is too much to spell, my name is Ian and how can you shorten that, but guess what, all the infantile's in my school tried , by calling me E.
Shortening the Name of anything in my humble opinion is nothing short of Ignorant and rude and if your English you should go back to school and learn ENGLISH.
E.
I feel that you have a slight dislike towards anyone who abreviates anything.... So you are saying that because i shorten a word, that i have a poor education, or that i am lazy because i dont type the whole word? and your opinion is not very humble in the way you continued your line, and effectively you have just called a large % of people rude and ignorant.
Harsh words really, and not called for. Like it or not, even the Dictionary is adding 'slang' to it, as it is so widely used.... oh yes, you can also have 'innit' in scrable now too.
You don't need to be a trained anything to take pride in your work!!! It takes me longer to type 12 letters instead of 3 too, but in the same vein as "snaps" being (for me, anyway) throwaway pictures taken with little thought, I feel "tog" suggests (to me) a casual photographer who machine guns pictures in the hope of getting something usable by good fortune.
The sort of person who gets a whole day's shooting on the computer with no decent pictures, so uses photoshop to turn them black and white or uses a crummy filter, and then calls them "fine art". Maybe that should be abbreviated to "fart".......?
but we do shorten policeman into "bobby" and the number of alternative phrases for the PM is legion (depending how much you hate the PM at that point in time ).
Abbreviations, to me, are only a pain when they are used in such a context that one cannot deduce their meaning; or in such volume such as they become unintelligible (like leet or text speak)
Quote: Shortening the Name of anything in my humble opinion is nothing short of Ignorant and rude and if your English you should go back to school and learn ENGLISH.
You might want to enrol on a course yourself, judging by the number of mistakes in the majority of your replies.
I'd rather be called a tog than "paedophile" or "terrorist", as many people shout at togs (which is short for Photographer, if you didn't know)
Quote: but we do shorten policeman into "bobby"
No we don't. That is a reference to Robert Peel, the founder of the Police Force (Bow Street Runners). I agree that they are called many things (Fuzz, Plod, Pigs, Filth etc etc), but these are terms invented to malign and insult them, not a mere shortening of their correct title.
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