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Is "We do R&D" or "We do hardware R&D", where "R&D" is used as a noun, more correct than "We R&D hardware", where "R&D" is used as a verb?

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Expand the initialism: "We research and design hardware". see? – Matt Эллен Feb 26 at 21:08
Turning initialisms into verbs produces some ugly offshoot spellings: "After R&D'ing for the past week, we R&R'd by the seashore at a little cottage that was just right for B&B'ing." – Sven Yargs Feb 27 at 1:31

2 Answers

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It depends entirely on what your organization defines "R&D" as. I would expect ordinarily that it stands for Research and Development, in which case "verbing" the acronym would be non-standard usage; but it could equally well stand for "Refine and Deliver" or "Request and Demolish", which would make "we do hardware R&D" the non-standard usage.

In short, if the "R" and "D" are short for a particular part of speech, then use the abbreviation as that part of speech.

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Well, if you chose "R&D" to mean "Research and Develop", it could work. You're basically verbing the noun, I suppose. – Joe Z. Feb 26 at 21:15
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"We r&d hardware" is hands down the best way to say this. More specifically, if you did something along the lines of: 

we make
apps

we r&d
hardware
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