Talk:Three-letter acronym

See also: Talk:Three-letter abbreviation

Please add any current discussions

Please add any current discussions only to:

• Talk:TLA to discuss the current disambiguation page
• Talk:Three letter acronym to discuss that page and related issues. PamD 12:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Categorization

i love the TLA list, and would like it to be even better: can someone please write a bot that goes thru the entire list, goes to each page, and adds a category tag to each page? many if not most of them do not refer back to the master TLA page. if they did, people who randomly hit a TLA entry of one sort or another would be more likely to discover the joy of the master TLA page, in all it's glory! Eupedia 07:02, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

oh joy

an acronym to describe an acronym?

oh, btw /TLA (three-letter abbreviation or acronym)/ needs to be changed, because that implies all acronyms are TLA's Ilyanep (Talk) 05:15, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Silly question- do we need a page to disambiguate TLA, since there are other things that use these initials? -FZ 20:44, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not a silly question. I would answer yes. --Heron 21:40, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

BTW, as a Technical Author, I was always told to make sure that all Abbreviations were Listed in the LOA. Maybe using an acronym is an anachronysm?. ChrisR

Evidence for my claim that "acronym" is older and more common:

I was on chemo-therapy in 1982, but still managed to attend a guest lecture at UCSD by a visiting computer scientist from either Cal or Stanford, named Phil Cohen. That was the first time I heard someone use the term "tla." He used it in the context of describing UUCP and email between sdsvax and ucbvax. I can't recall the example. There had to have been at least fifty others in the classroom. Anyone out there? This might have been already known at UCSD, where jargon from KB's Pascal Project was prevalent. --Michelle

In support of "three letter acronym" being older:

• [1] Earliest Google groups hit for "Three letter abbreviation" is Jan 3 1990
• [2] Earliest Google groups hit for "Three letter acronym" is Sep 18 1984

In support of "three letter acronym" being more common:

• [3] 16,400 Google hits for +TLA "three letter acronym"
• [4] 1,590 Google web search hits for +TLA "three letter abbreviation"
• [5] 5,640 Google groups hits for +TLA "three letter acronym"
• [6] 436 Google groups hits for +TLA "three letter abbreviation"

Nohat 21:35, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Google should not be the final arbiter of truth. A search for "lindsay lohan" gives 2,210,000 results, while "henry kissinger" gives 643,000. Now, which of those two people is more important? Additionally, "acronym" is a shorter word than "abbreviation" and has fewer syllables (three versus five). People are lazy. —Mulad (talk) July 1, 2005 02:56 (UTC)

So? That doesn't invalidate the fact that "acronym" is older and more common. Nohat 08:18, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

So? That doesn't validate the Google-backed opinion that "acronym" is older and more common. 218.103.132.187 13:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Abbreviation or acronym?

ISTM that the current introduction while three-letter acronym is the older and more frequently cited term, many argue that use of the word acronym is incorrect (see acronym and initialism), and this has led to the increasing use of the word abbreviation as opposed to acronym in expanding the term is still both POV and inaccurate.

IMO there's no noticeable shift away from the tendency to call all initialisms, including TLA itself, acronyms, and there's no evidence presented here for this claimed shift. Rather, it's a case of a few pedants deciding that the common usage is wrong, and attempting to correct it, and this introduction is part of that attempt.

Modern linguistics has rejected this once-common approach, which is labelled prescriptive, in favour of documenting what actually happens, the descriptive approach. Wikipedia should, similarly, take the descriptive approach IMO.

Mind you, to say a few pedants, applying the obsolete prescriptive approach long rejected by linguistics, inaccurately suggest from time to time that the correct expansion of TLA is instead "three letter abbreviation" is equally POV, although IMO accurate. Other suggestions? Andrewa 18:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure you can so easily declare prescriptivism dead and descriptivism the youngster dancing on its grave - personally, I agree that descriptivism is the better option, but I think both are alive and well, and have been for many many years. As such, I don't see much wrong with the current wording, but to be on the "safe" side, I've removed the assertion that use of "abbreviation" is growing, in favour of saying that some people advocate it. I was tempted to say "appears to be the older" rather than "is the older" as well, but it felt a bit weaselly. I certainly think "acronym" is probably the older usage, but I can't say I have a definitive source for that - as someone's mentionned already, it's certainly easier to say... - IMSoP 01:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

It's almost certainly acronym, since the term originates (as far as I can tell) as a computer hacker term. The definitive source for hacker terms is the Hacker's Dictionary, a.k.a. the Jargon File, which uses acronym. It's not clear when the entry for TLA was added to the Jargon file, however, since it's not present in the first versions, but was added sometime between 1983 and 1990.

It's also more accurate to say that an abbreviation is a shortening of a word or phrase (e.g., "blog" is a four-letter abbreviation for "web log"), whereas an acronym uses the initial letters of multiple words to form a single word. Obviously, it's the second form being discussed in this entry. -Loadmaster 22:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the links I posted in the previous section, you'll see that the earliest Usenet post with the phrase "three letter acronym" is from 1984 and the earliest occurrence of "three letter abbreviation" is in 1990, with many hundreds of examples of "three letter acronym" occurring before "three letter abbreviation" made its first appearance. Now, of course it's possible that people were saying "three letter abbreviation" for years but never bothered to write that form on Usenet even though people did write "three letter acronym", but it just seems extraordinarily unlikely. Nohat 01:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

How common are the TLAs in the common categories?

Is GWB a common abbreviation for George W. Bush? I never heard it before and in spoken language it would be a silly abbreviation anyway, because it has the same number of syllables.

Common categories of TLAs

The last category in the list of common categories of TLAs, "A significant number of TLAs come from various codes:", has a list of some types of codes.

Most of those types of codes are three letter codes, for example, all ISO 4217 (currency codes) are three letter abbreviations and the same holds for the IATA airport codes and the IOC codes. In the case of the currency codes, Wikipedia lists only RUR and USD currently, while all other currency codes are TLAs as well.

I suggest writing something like "All ISO 4217 currency codes, e.g. ...", to show that ISO 4217 codes are always three letter codes, which are abbreviations, hence TLAs.

TLA or "TCA"

Would C2C be considered a TLA or a "three character acronym/abbreviation" considering the digit contained in it. I am thinking that providing information around this in the discussion-space of {{TLAdisambig}} would be helpful. I'm interested from the standpoint of my work on Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation. Thanks. Courtland 01:34, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Well, personally, I'd think things like B2B, C2C, etc were TLAs - like debating whether the 'A' stands for 'acronym' or 'abbreviation', I think any distinction misses the point that this is a humourous slang term that refers to the commonness with which things are given 3 character names for snappiness, not some kind of academically accepted linguistic terminology. - IMSoP 13:52, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

votes for deletion targeting all systematic lists of letter combinations

see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_all_single-letter-single-digit_combinations where the deletion of all systematic lists of letter combinations is being considered. Courtland 00:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

since that page is now archived, i will add:

please don't delete! the TLA list is a very useful resource that i use all the time. it rocks compared to google's lame "define: <query>" feature. Eupedia 06:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

RAS Syndrome

From the article: "Increasing numbers of TLAs, and other abbreviations, are showing Redundant Acronym Syndrome, in which usually the last of the abbreviated words is added to the TLA (for example, ATM machine, PIN number, HIV virus). Purists recommend avoiding RAS syndrome, especially in formal writing such as technical writing." (emphasis mine) I was reaching for my edit button, but then it seemed like it might have been put in intentionally -- and it seems quite humorous, if one understands the joke. So, is it intentional?

On a somewhat related "putting the material back into Wikipedia" note: the disambiguation page for TLA reads "TLA is a three-letter abbreviation which can mean several things. Most commonly, it literally means three-letter abbreviation or three-letter acronym..." and seems, well, recursive. Recursion n.: see recursion. TheProject 02:34, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

It's intentional - RAS syndrome is a distinctly humourous label, deliberately designed to be an example of itself; in a sense, it would actually be incorrect to contract it to just "RAS". In fact, I think I'll rework the sentence to use that form first, rather than piping the link to read "Redundant Acronym Syndrome". - IMSoP 12:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Wrong count?

If one or two numbers are included (e.g. 4GL, Y2K), the total swells to 26 x 36 x 36 = 33,696
If I am not mistaken, this should be 36x36x36-10x10x10. The formula proposed in the article is wrong since it only considers the cases in which the two numbers are in the 2nd and 3rd position. The one I propose here is based on this counting: all 3-(letters or numbers) abbreviations minus all the ones which are composed only by numbers. Simply check with 1+1 symbols instead of 26+10 and you will see.
--federico (and yes, I am a mathematician)

I saw the above formula has been edited and corrected to 26x36x36x3 after my remark, but this value is even wronger than the previous one (it counts multiple times all TLAs with less than two numbers). Who changed it without even checking? Anyway, now I have changed it again to the correct value. And I hope all this is over. --federico

List of TLAs and List of all three letter acronyms

Are either List of TLAs or List of all three letter acronyms needed since this article has a section linking to the TLA's? -Bogsat 14:09, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

should just be a wiktionary entry

Does anyone else consider this article masturbatory geek esoterica? What troubles me is that "TLA" is an unnecessary descriptor; the identification of a TLA is immediately apparent whether the reader understands "TLA" or not. That is, "TLA" can only add ambiguity. If I call FAA a "TLA," that adds no additional information if the reader knows what "TLA" means. If he doesn't, then he's unnecessarily confused and refers to the TLA article. Upon reading the article, he realizes that TLA is a redundant classification and that he wasted his time looking it up. So what's the point? Jargon shouldn't be created for the sake of more jargon.

[not sure how to indent my reply; however, I agree with this: it's a pure definition of a term, and way more long and rambling than necessary just so that somebody could get in geeky references to GNU, the faux-difference between "abbreviation" and "acronym", and so on] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.113.133.7 (talk • contribs) .

Me too. This is total bs ("TBS"). For one thing, as the article notes, most three letter "acronyms" aren't even acronyms. So do we have an infinite series of Wikipedia articles about one letter acronyms, two letter acronyms, three letter acronyms and so on, and really list each type? Or do we recognise that this is simply a grammatical construction which isn't a "thing" in itself worthy of a wikipedia article, any more than Fat Ginger Cats or Five-Storeyed Houses. ElectricRay (talk) 09:04, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Send to dictionary

In total agreement. This is not a topic for an encyclopedia, it is more suited as an entry in "The Annals of Improbable Research" or even "MAD Magazine." There is nothing useful here that would not be better suited for a dictionary entry: i.e., a table of acronyms which is, of course, found in the appendices of large dictionaries. Let's refer it to the Wiktionary

(1) The dating is entirely techno-centric. There were abbreviations used in the ancient world--no one who is affiliated with computers had anything to do with their use. Note: "TLAs" did not become popular in the USA in the New Deal Times. The reason so many abbreviations hit the popular press is that while they were commonly used in Federal Government and Military publications, the influx of all of these programs made it easy for journalists to use just the abbreviation. USA, USS, HMS, UN, POW. . .all were commonly used way before Roosevelt was even born.

(2) The use of abbreviations does not aid understanding. US Government and Military and the Stylesheets of most newspapers point out that no abbreviation should be used without first spelling it out in text. This excludes, of course, some of the most common abbreviations--such as USA. Many publications dedicated to aid in producing understandable writing suggests they be used with great caution, especially in that a simple substitution of an unintended other abbreviation is likely to lead to massive misunderstanding.

(3) This article is distressingly US-centric. Abbreviations are commonly used in other parts of the world(even parts where there is no readily available and reliable electric sources with which to power computers). One potentially interesting point is the tendency for abbreviations to become names--the map becoming the territory. I have seen it most commonly in Latin America but it probably exists elsewhere. I'm speaking of the situation in which the abbreviation becomes pronounced as a word, and sometimes is used so frequently that the original name is mostly forgotten. The example that comes to mind right now is "INELA" (pronounced in-nell-uh) which is an organization in Bolivia. This is common in the linguistically patched world of the UN as well, where some abbreviations become substituted for the name and migrates across languages so that the spoken word made of initials is used even in languages in which the initial abbreviations wouldn't make sense.

(4) I agree that the difference between "anagram" and "abbreviation"--especially in that we are somewhat missing the mark with our usage of "anagram" here--is a distinction without a difference.

(5) It would thus be more profitable to put efforts into an entry on abbreviations, tracing the way that abbreviations have altered in their relationship to the words being abbreviated, and porting the entire list of anagrams to the dictionary project. The abbreviation article thus would sprout from the entries on semiotics--the study of signs, symbols and the relationships among signifiers, signifieds and sometimes, significants.

Roy 07:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

FAQ acronym vs. initialism

Above the contents, it says FAQ is pronounced as one word. does anybody actually do this? isn't FAQ an initialism?

I can vouch for my professional community: FAQ is most often pronounced acronymically as "fak". Urhixidur 18:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I've heard it pronounced as Fak in computer science groups but like Sequel (SQL) and other attempts to uncomplicate the jargon you will very often have to explain it again anyway so are better off to just avoid the premature optimisations and communicate more clearly in the first place by using the long form. FAQ can be a pronouncable acronym in groups that use it often enough but it rarely is. -- Horkana (talk) 22:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet Another Bloody Acronym brings me here :/

YABA redirects to Yaba, where the only link for "Yet Another Bloody Acronym" points me here. Why's that? I suppose everyone can see that YABA are four, not three letters.

-The preceding signed comment was added by Nazgjunk (talk • contrib) 21:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Usefulness?

I've seen several pages now that say (as an example) "PDQ is a TLA" with no explanation for what a TLA is without actually clicking on the link... how is this useful? While it's true that one of the great things about Wikipedia is that you can go from page to page and end up somewhere completely different from where you started (and not even mind), using an acronym to indicate that something else is an acronym seems unhelpful at best - I expect information about (thing) to be on the page about (thing) and indeed forcing someone onto another page for information as simple as "This is an acronym" defies that basic principle. Just because you can shorten "three-letter acronym" to TLA doesn't mean you always should. Indeed, in any formal writing, an acronym almost always follows its full text as in "United States of America (USA)". Without the initial referent, the inclusion of only "TLA" is annoying and potentially obfuscating aside.

I'm not going to spearhead any project to change all TLAs into three-letter acronyms, but it's food for thought. I'm interested in other views on this. 128.196.204.224 22:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I changed a bunch of disambiguation pages (replacing TLA with three-letter acronym). But you're right, there are an awful lot of them out there. — Loadmaster 23:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not necessary to change disambiguation pages to read "three-letter acronym" instead of "TLA," as both labels are unnecessary. Simply saying that the group of letters is an "acronym" is sufficient. The number of letters in the grouping is obvious to anyone viewing them, and such a distinction would be akin to saying "acronym is a 7-letter word meaning..." It's unnecessary to have TLA as part of an acronym's disambig page or even to give the number of letters in the acronym listed. -DavidGC 03:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with DavidGC. This fetishism of this term is idiotic.--Ericjs (talk) 05:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Pointless entry

Isn't this whole idea pointless?

Where shall it be stopped? Four-letter acronyms? Maybe Five! I have an idea: why not six?

Some people have too much time on their hands. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.65.143.156 (talk) 13:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

Exactly. ElectricRay (talk) 09:05, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Onomatopoeia

This article, while full of facts, seems to miss the point entirely. The term “TLA” is silly. And it is confusing. And it is both of those things on purpose! That’s why it’s so powerful and it’s caught on so well. That’s why there’s no “FLA” (4 or 5), “SLA” (6 or 7), “ELA”, etc. That’s why “3LA” never caught on.

The term is almost a synonym for “jargon”. When you accuse someone of using a TLA, that’s a derogatory term. (And if that person replies “What’s a ‘TLA’?” then you know you’re about 7 seconds from making your point.)

TLAs have taken on a large cultural component. Most people who work for large corporations or government agencies will be inundated with these. Most people who have avoided those places will not understand why this idea is important.

The fact that people regularly use this term, and that it is so confusing certainly justifies the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.15.31.12 (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

Reasons for major deletion

I took the bold step and deleted much of the article. Others might choose to revert, if so I hope we can have a straightforward discussion of the topic's merits as a separate entry. Here's why I deleted it.

(1) The Wikipedia entry to which it pointed, acronym does a much better job of outlining the practice and actually addresses most of the concerns expressed on this page. So it is redundant.

(2) The deleted parts were terribly English-centric, disregarding the use of acronyms in other languages for centuries. I can't imagine any serious scholar of language taking the position that the use of three letter acronyms are a modern English phenomenon.

(3) The entry was also historically naive. The acronym article points out, for example, the extensive use of acronyms even in the ancient world. Computers had absolutely nothing to do with acronyms of any length, although you could certainly make a case that cellphones and online chats have birthed a new interest (and extensive expansion) of letter substitutions: ICQ, URG8, etc. These are not acronyms, strictly speaking, and have no apparent tie to 3-letter formats.

(4) Much of the deleted material contained "facts" that were directly controverted by the acronym article. Example: WWW is not anywhere the longest acronym in the English language, let alone every language. Look to the military for that distinction!

(5) Several posts on this page had pointed out for some defense of the point of the article. I could find nothing except for the claim that their use had dramatically increased in the modern organization. There are many things that are good and useful (or evil and unnecessary, depending on your point of view) that nevertheless are not best suited to an encyclopedic entry. There are many Wiki projects, and a couple of these are really better suited for this topic. If we need a definition for a term that people find confusing, we should send it to the dictionary.

(6) Finally, before I took such a bold action, I revisited the Wikipedia policy and guidelines page. I was encouraged there to "take bold action" as long as it was in a spirit of kindness and respect, and documented. So I did. This deletion is not, of course, final. Anyone who wants can revert it, although I believe this would be an equally bold action that would require some extensive explanation of the rationale. I do hope that my actions and explanations here radiate "helpful" instead of "hostile." I truly am trying to make things better.

(7) If someone does revert my edits we will be able to start the process of discussing the topic here, rather than leaving a series of mostly disconnected notes. Meanwhile I believe that the Wikipedia will be stronger for it.

PS I did leave in the external references and some of the folksy sort of comments. I am not at all wedded to retaining these, so someone else could certainly feel free to delete them. Perhaps we would be best off with a couple of sentence explanation and a redirect. . .or maybe even just a redirect to "acronym", although we should then begin the process of cleaning up all of the links.

Technical question: what happens to all of the TLA links if the article is deleted? Might it be easier to lose all those links throughout the Wikipedia by deleting the article for a bit, then (if we must) returning it? Or will we need to change all of those links one by one?

It does seem unhelpful, after all, to have links in other topics that redirect someone here from an article about nuclear power, for instance (I don't know that this is an actual link, just using it as an illustration). The link to "acronym" in an article that happens to use an acronym is no more helpful than having a link to articles on "nouns" "verbs" or "split infinitives." I believe some posts above expressed this sort of frustration.

Roy 00:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Haha I like this and there should be some comedy aspect to this article - is 3LA a TLA or a 3LA, is it a TLA in the sense of a TWO letter acronym 'cos it only has 2 letters in it? If so can it also be described as a O.N.T.L.A.? (- work it out...) There's a need for this article and the abbreviation because 'TLAs' are everywhere, but this is also very ironic... ____alexxxth - 2256 on Valentines Day 2007

Four letter acronym?

Could there be an article on this too? I can think of a few but not enough for an article... important ones like FEMA, HUAC and unimportant ones like ATHF and RHCP —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.10.240.56 (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

History and origins

The claim for a 1982 origin has not been substantiated for more than a year. I think it should be deleted. The 1988 example is the earliest which can be substantiated.Chemical Engineer (talk) 22:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Edsger W. Dijkstra Quote

The quote from Edsger W. Dijkstra is very short and it takes it out of context, where he mocks the use of three letter acronyms and the tendency of corporations to try and trademark them. To make a more detailed quote doesn't seem appropriate so I included the title of the paper ~ the cruelty of teaching computer science ~ to give at least a hint that he might not be talking about a TLA as a good thing. The old reference for the quote was in the form of a PDF that contained an image of handwritten text. This PDF source was long and was not in any way searchable, strongly discouraging anyone from actually reading the quote in context, so I replaced it with a HTML version of the Dijkstra quote. I encourage other editors to read the quote in it's proper context and make sure that section doesn't get changed in ways that give the quote any more of a dubious context than it already has. -- Horkana (talk) 22:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Texas instruments

interesting but uncited. could be reintroduced if a source was found. preserving here just in case -- Horkana (talk) 02:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The first known use of the self-referential term "TLA" was by Texas Instruments Inc. employees in the Industrial Systems Division circa 1982. Engineers used to mock the marketing department's tendency to define new products with three-word descriptions, such as "CVU" for a product line called "Control Vision Unit" and "ACM" for "Automation Configuration Module." Due to the seemingly excessive use of three-letter abbreviations or initialisms at the company, the employees started simply to report that they were working on product "TLA" as an ironic self-reference.

Urban Legend

This is completely unsubstantiated and in my view non-encylopedic.Chemical Engineer (talk) 10:16, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Two-letter acronyms: IETF RFC example?

The April 1 RFC 5513 jokingly suggests the abbreviation "TLA" should be reserved to stand for "Two letter acronym". 210.0.229.224 (talk) 06:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

There have been many such. My favourite:

I - Initial
SA - Short Acronym
TLA - Three Letter Acronym
TLAE - TLA Extended
TLAE2 - TLAE version 2
TLAE2A - TLAE2 revision A
TLAE2A1 - TLAE2A update 1

IBM of course uses TLAX rather than TLAE, and I'm afraid I don't know the standard name for eight characters but I'm sure there is one (;->

But RFC 5513 while humerous is probably encyclopedic, and should go into the article. It is verifiable, and all IETF RFCs are notable. Andrewa (talk) 23:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The lede needs to be rewritten

The lede, as it is currently written, is confusing and wrong. The first sentence reads like this: "A three-letter acronym, three-letter abbreviation, or TLA is an abbreviation, specifically an acronym, alphabetism, or initialism, consisting of three letters." This implies that acronyms are the same as abbreviations, and I think everyone here knows they are not. Right? (All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms.) It may be however that the title of the article should be changed, as it really should be "Three letter abbreviation". It really embarrassing for Wikipedia to have such obvious mistakes. __209.179.46.67 (talk) 21:30, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

History of "Three-Letter Acronym" being itself abbreviated to TLA.

The History section states "The exact phrase three-letter acronym appeared in the sociology literature in 1975." However, it would also be useful to document the first time the full phrase itself was abbreviated to TLA (which itself is a TLA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.25.231.219 (talk) 16:19, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

three-letter abbreviations such as etc. and Mrs. are not three-letter acronyms

It would enhance the article to add what they are instead--Backinstadiums (talk) 10:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Is this page useful?

Is it really useful to have a page about a specific length of acronym? It seems like this should be merged into acronym. 184.21.204.5 (talk) 19:27, 11 December 2022 (UTC)