TLAs and BFLAs

It seems that acronyms are much favoured by Mensans, Technocrats and Bureaucrats. This puts us in august company! There is a certain attraction to acronyms; they neatly sum up some bulky name or phrase, and enable easier communication. Some cynics may suggest that they are also useful for obfuscation, and preserving a sense of elitism and secrecy for those "in the know". Anyone asking what an acronym actually stands for is obviously not one of the elect. I wish to make some humble attempt here to clarify the world of acronyms. (Completely ignoring any previous studies that may have been done.)

The word acronym is composed of the Greek roots "edge" or "top", and "name". There are a number of simple categories that can be applied to acronyms, that may be helpful in understanding the minds of their authors.

The simplest acronyms could be called Initial acronyms, where each letter stands for a separate word. Acronyms can be also generally categorised by the number of letters used. There are single-letter acronyms, such as Q, which relates to energy. Then there are the two-letter variety, such as state names, like WA and SA. The most common and best-loved appear to be the TLAs: Three-Letter Acronyms. These abound in computers, with ROM, RAM and DOS; and in physics, with EMF, UHF and EHV. (If you don't know, look them up!) There are many more, and the number of letters can be as high as you like.

We could probably call the next category the Euphonious acronyms; those where letters are added or subtracted to produce a pronounceable word. These are very popular with government and marketers. ANZAC almost gets away without it; only the "and" is dropped. The second or other letters of some words can be included, as in RADAR - RAdio Detection And Ranging. These acronyms are often written as, or indeed adopted as, words in their own right. Who remembers that laser stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation"?

A special category could be Immigrant acronyms, where foreign words are adopted into English, such as RSVP. Sometimes, something may be changed or lost in the translation, producing another category; the Slipped acronym. A classic case here is the cellular mobile phone standard mentioned in the previous issue: GSM. GSM originally stood for "Groupe System Mobile", but has now been broadened and anglicised into "Global System for Mobiles".

Slipped acronyms don't need to be foreign. EDI once stood for "Electronic Document Interchange". Now, it seems to be the almost uselessly generalised "Electronic Data Interchange". The Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) seems to have been narrowed down to Video only, before it even hit the market. Many acronyms have their humorous re-wording. The standard for those little cards that plug into Notebook PCs is known as PCM-CIA, appropriately re-worded "People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronyms".

We have Redundant acronyms: what does the "N" stand for in PIN Number? We also have Nested acronyms, which hide other acronyms. These are mostly found in technical fields. Even more obscure is the Recursive acronym. There is a computer software package called GNU: "Gnu's Not Unix".

Most elegantly, we have the Self-referential acronyms, TLA being the prime example. Oh, yes, BFLA? I'll let you work that one out. And that's the whole story, from DOB to DOA!

Updated: 26 Jan 2000

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