The problem with Acronyms

FYI: The meaning of TLAs and MLAs is going to be an FAQ NGL.

Let’s start with a simple fact: Effective communication means that you are able to communicate your thoughts in a way that other people can understand them. That means using clear and understandable words and phrases, which almost by definition excludes the use of jargon; and I believe the worst source of jargon is Three, or Multi, Letter Acronyms (TLAs/MLAs).

The very use of these automatically assumes knowledge, that whilst it may be commonly known to you and your team, may be unfamiliar to those around you. Now, whilst I would hope that people have the confidence and security to say “Hey, sorry I’m not familiar with that acronym; would you mind explaining it?”, that is unlikely to happen as quite often people are uncomfortable admitting they don’t know something especially when they think that they should.

In this post, we are going to talk about TLAs/MLAs, where they come from, the issue with them, and how you can make it easier for people who may not be familiar with them to understand what they mean.

We aren’t even going to touch on the worst offenders which aren’t even acronyms but are just laughably bad such as this one [1]:

Love them or hate them, TLAs/MLAs are part of business, so how can you use them effectively?

The genesis of an “acronym”

For those unfamiliar, an acronym is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as [2]:

A group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately; an initialism (such as ATM, TLS)

Acronyms, in the strictest definition, allow time savings through the abbreviation of words; and when commonly understood become as understandable as the full term itself, so much so that the expansion can become redundant. For example, ATM means a cash machine, even though it is shortened from “Automated Teller Machine”; I am barely old enough to remember going to a bank teller, but for many the origin of the word will make no sense even though we know what an ATM is. In such cases the acronym becomes synonymous and supersedes its own origin, other examples being: Personal Identification Number (PIN), and the one that we use in the very title of this Substack, Masters of Business Administration (MBA).

This can happen quickly, for example let’s take the acronym GPT; this has become part of common language very quickly, although I would wager than many don’t know what it stands for. To be completely honest I had to look it up, but even though it means “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”, its usage supersedes its definition; the acronym itself has taken on a life of its own.

A good acronym can actually be a business asset, it can quickly become part of the collective intelligence and define a landscape. With this power, it is no wonder that people try to make complicated or “dry” phrases acronyms to help in adoption.

Creating good acronyms is harder than you think

Acronyms are powerful tools to solidify knowledge; in a post on this Substack we use the multi letter acronym “CRAP” as a tool to help people remember “the fundamental rules of change”. I forced this acronym.

How? The four letters stand for: Compassionate, Responsive, Adaptable, Prepared; however the first version used Flexible rather than Responsive and to make the point clearer and more memorable I changed it. I was looking for an acronym, and I was able to get one by changing a single word whilst maintaining the meaning and point I wanted to communicate.

In this case I think it works, however in the pursuit of a good acronym people can do some questionable things.

You may be asking why I put acronym in quotations marks at the top of the previous section? Whilst this definition may be what is commonly understood, language evolves and confusingly this isn’t always the case anymore. Two common variations are taking letters in the word or syllables to construct the “acronym”.

One of the first acronyms you may have been exposed to is a way to remember the order of operations in mathematical equations - PEMDAS.

PEMDAS: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

There is another acronym for this - which is the one that I was initially taught - BODMAS:

BODMAS: Brackets, pOwers, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction

Notice, to fit the acronym we don’t take the “P” from powers instead we take the “O”; this isn’t the first letter! Talk about taking the p…

If you were trying to decipher BODMAS, you wouldn’t intuitively think to take the second letter. This can lead to more confusion because if we aren’t taking the first letter anymore, there are infinite ways in which we can construct this “acronym”; how could someone unfamiliar even start to understand it?

To add more confusion into the mix there are syllabic acronyms, which are actually abbreviations rather than true acronyms. For example, “Hazmat”; this is an syllabic acronym formed from the first syllables of the words “Hazardous Materials”.

We haven’t even discussed that some acronyms can use acronyms in their acronym, or the rarely spotted recursive acronyms (GNU - GNU’s not Unix!) like an acronym inception… this can get messy quick.

The key when creating acronyms is not to think of the acronym first and force the letters to work around it. Acronyms when used correctly should help people remember knowledge, it is grossly inefficient if the time you saved by using an acronym is lost by the other people trying to figure out what the hell it means.

I am going to create an exaggerated example of how some people create acronyms, I wish this were just a joke but it can happen.

When creating acronyms remember to aim for GREATNESS:

Good Acronyms make it easy for people to remember long phrases easily

Whilst this is my poor attempt at satire, this is sadly not unrealistic, sometimes people want an acronym so badly, they forget the purpose is to make communication easier.

The inaccessibility of TLAs

Unfortunately, if we assume acronyms are created or adopted to help facilitate understanding; they can often be the very thing they looked to avoid. Acronyms to those unfamiliar with them can be exclusionary, which makes them jargon. To make matters worse, there are a finite number of combinations, and only a handful of them are “good” or useable; seriously who is going to use FCK or DIK as their acronym?

Which brings us to an issue, what if your previous business used the same acronym for a different meaning? You may end up doing something completely wrong because of this misunderstanding.

Another problem is that acronyms often try to replicate words or make them easy to say, in the language of origin. Let’s take the acronym we used at the start of this article ATM. Whilst this might have transcended english and become common use, in Germany ATMs are Geldautomats - literally gold automators. Will a german speaker understand ATM, probably; but we can’t assume that all acronyms span languages.

For a business tool that is meant to make communication easier, there certainly are a lot of issues with them. So should we stop using them? Maybe, but that’s unrealistic; instead we should get better in the ways we use them

Used correctly, acronyms are powerful tools.

As tempting as it is, I am not going to create an acronym to help you remember how to use acronyms more effectively; I have used my one attempt at satire up already in this post. Instead I am going to give you three key points to remember:

1. Never Assume Knowledge

   You might have noticed throughout this post I have used the following structure - Multi Letter Acronym (MLA). In every new document when you introduce a MLA you should use the full expansion and provide the MLA like I have shown. Then you can use the MLA throughout the document as there is a reference within for easy understanding. Some exceptions may apply, but you should do this in every new presentation, e-mail thread, and any form of digital or physical communication. It may seem awkward at first to define commonly used MLAs, but you never know who a document, or recording, is going to be sent to; and if your goal is to communicate effectively, then this will always accomplish that.

2. Seek Clarification

   When someone uses an MLA that you aren’t familiar with, politely ask for clarification and what it means. Understandably, you may be nervous that this will make the person think you don’t know enough; but the key is to highlight that you just want to confirm that we are on the same page moving forward. Also by asking for this clarification you start to create or strengthen a culture where you won’t feel self conscious making these requests moving forward. Through this and by phrasing the question in this manner, it highlights that you want to minimise the chance of any avoidable mistakes; because I guarantee if a mistake happens because you didn’t get this clarification, the person isn’t going to ignore it and absolve you of any blame or responsibility.

3. Keep a list

   This one is straightfoward, whether it is a Notion page, a Google Doc, or however you choose to do it make a list that can be shared within the business. This way you make it easy for people who may not have the confidence to ask for clarification publicly, or any new starters within the business, to find the information they need to do their jobs effectively.

Remember that the seconds saved by using acronyms in writing or speaking could actually equal minutes lost if the person doesn’t understand; and it’s not their fault, it’s yours for not teaching them.

I believe that by doing these three things, you can be the change you wish to see. Through using acronyms effectively, and showing that asking for clarification is not a bad thing to do, you can make the use of acronyms what they were intended to be - ways to communicate more effectively.

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Grand. Thanks for your time.