Acronyms

Acronyms, once primarily abbreviated expressions for Depression-era government programs, have devolved into a parallel pop language that is rapidly turning web-based communications into a modern Tower of Babel. How many times over the past year have you run a Google search on an acronym you weren’t certain you had identified correctly, if at all? Come on now, be honest. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are, chances are good that if you have even a modest intellectual curiosity, you have done it sometime over the past year. And you know what? That’s an interesting allocation of your time when you consider that the acronym is supposed to speed communications.

The use of acronyms among IT (Information Technology!) workers have become a code-language implying some kind of insider knowledge or presumed expertise by the emitter of the acronym. At their worst, acronyms have begun to work more as a refuge, or as some kind of verbal shill – increasingly conferring legitimacy on basically empty claims, views or comprehension. It’s been happening for a long time but the emergence of abbreviated messaging in social media and through texting seems to have doused the fire with gasoline. Acronyms apply a thin veneer of sophistication to our communications and usually not much more.

Having said that, we all use acronyms and many of them have become a recognizable part of the vernacular … but that still doesn’t mean we are speaking the same language. Take the acronym SMB (or its derivative SME). What’s that mean to you? If you are a marketing person, it stands for “small and medium business.” Great, what does that actually mean? Well, to some that defines small and medium businesses (or enterprises) as doing less than $1 billion in business annually. Another sees that cutoff as $500 million. Some see “medium” as running in the $100 million to $250 million range. So, we really are not talking about the same specific idea, even though we sort of “get it.” Or do we? I just received a message from a reader who thought “SMB” was an acronym for “server message blocks.” And you know what, the confusion was not amusing and looking up the “definition” was a waste of his time. I get that sentiment completely.

So, here is my humble recommendation moving forward. Return to the practice of spelling out the expression first in every document, to define the acronym. For example, we use the acronym “DBTA” all the time, but in every communication we send out we spell out our trade name “Database Trends and Applications (DBTA)” first. It’s a good rule and it takes your reader into consideration. It’s worth letting folks know what you are really speaking or writing about, if for no other reason than to make sure you actually are expressing what is on your mind. You can do it in business correspondence and email, documents, presentations, speeches and discussions, webcasts, blogs and in all types of media. You can’t really do it in text messages and social media doesn’t give you much room either. So, that’s an interesting dividing line and a point of departure for another time.