Outer Life: Sprechen Sie BMWese?

I'm functionally illiterate. When it comes to car brochures, that is.

Try as I might, I cannot comprehend the mass of Proper Nouns and ACRONYMS thrown together on the pages of these brochures.

Take, for instance, the following terms and acronyms lifted directly from the brochure for the new BMW 5-series:

Active Cruise Control (ACC), Active Roll Stabilization (ARS), Active Steering with Servotronic power assist, Adaptive Brake Lights, Adaptive Transmission Control (ATC), Advanced Head Protection System (AHPS II) ("activate the Active head restraints"), Battery Safety Terminal, BMW Ambiance Lighting, BMW Assist, Coded Driveaway Protection, Dakota Leather, Double-pivot-type front suspension, Double-VANOS steplessly variable valve timing, Dual resonance intake system, Dynamic Brake Control (DBC), Dynamic Driving Control, Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) including Dynamic Traction Control, Expanded Check Control vehicle monitor system, 4-link Integral rear suspension, iDrive Controller, Intelligent Safety and Information System (ISIS), Logic7 sound system, Multi-mode STEPTRONIC automatic transmission, Park Distance Control, Radio Data System, Sequential Manual Gearbox (SMG), Shadowline exterior trim, Valvetronic electronic valve control system, Voice Command System, Xenon Adaptive Headlights.

BMW helpfully translates a few words of BMWese in the brochure. For instance, "Double VANOS" apparently "allows the engine to 'steplessly' choose the valve timings for both intake and exhaust cams" and a "Valvetronic" "replaces the function of the throttle butterfly with continuously variable lift control." Pretty simple once they explain it.

However, many terms are left undefined, suggesting everyone but me knows why a "4-Link Integral" suspension is superior to a "double-pivot-type" suspension (or was that the other way around?) and can explain the difference between "Dynamic Stability Control" and "Dynamic Traction Control."

Some BMWese terms don't need a translation -- the differences between the Silver Gray Metallic, Titanium Gray Metallic and Titanium Silver Metallic exterior colors should be obvious to anyone.

BMW is not alone. Each car manufacturer has invented its own unique language to describe its cars. Like the French, they seem to have a different word for everything.