Three-letter acronym
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A three-letter acronym (TLA), or three-letter abbreviation, is an abbreviation consisting of three letters. These are usually the initial letters of the words of the phrase abbreviated, and are written in capital letters (upper case); three-letter abbreviations such as etc. and Mrs. are not three-letter acronyms, but "TLA" itself is a TLA (an example of an autological abbreviation).
Most three-letter abbreviations are not, strictly,
Examples
- Academic testing: ACT, SAT
- Air Navigation Services (MET, and SAR
- LHR
- Business: CEO, CFO, and other C-level officers
- Canine registries: AKC and CKC
- Chemistry, biology, and pharmaceuticals: LSD, and MSG
- Clinical medicine: CAD, CHF, PSA, and SOB
- Communications shorthand: LOL and OMG
- Computer phrases: CPU, DOS, RAM, ROM, and GNU
- Corporations: BMW, IBM, AMD, KFC and NEC
- Countries: SRI, USA, CAR, UAE, DRC, etc.
- Currency: CHF
- Famous people: RFK, and RMS
- File extensions: XLS
- Military and weaponry: BFR and RPG
- Musical groups:
- Personal advertisements: SBM for Single Black Male, STR for Short Term Relationship
- Political Parties: BJP, CCP, GOP, and AAP
- Religion: SDA
- Sports organizations:
- State VIC, and TAS(Australia)
- (Japan)
- Three-letter agencies: FSB, and NSA
- Traffic offenses: OVI
- Wars and political conflicts: HYW and WWI
History and origins
The exact phrase three-letter acronym appeared in the sociology literature in 1975.[1] Three-letter acronyms were used as mnemonics in biological sciences, from 1977[2] and their practical advantage was promoted by Weber in 1982.[3] They are used in many other fields, but the term TLA is particularly associated with computing.[4] In 1980, the manual for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer used and explained TLA.[5] The specific generation of three-letter acronyms in computing was mentioned in a JPL report of 1982.[6] In 1988, in a paper titled "On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computing Science", eminent computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra wrote (disparagingly), "No endeavour is respectable these days without a TLA"[7] By 1992 it was in a Microsoft handbook.[8]
Combinatorics
The number of possible three-letter abbreviations using the 26 letters of the alphabet from A to Z (AAA, AAB, ... to ZZY, ZZZ) is 26 × 26 × 26 = 17,576. An additional 26 × 26 × 10 = 6760 can be produced for each single position allowed to be a digit 0-9, such as
In standard English, WWW is the TLA whose pronunciation requires the most syllables—typically nine. The usefulness of TLAs typically comes from its being quicker to say than the phrase it represents; however saying 'WWW' in English requires three times as many syllables as the phrase it is meant to abbreviate (World Wide Web). "WWW" is sometimes abbreviated to "dubdubdub" in speech.[9]
See also
- Acronym
- Alphabet agencies
- ISO 4217 (currency code)
- List of abbreviations in photography
- List of computing and IT abbreviations
- List of three-letter broadcast call signs in the United States
- List of three-letter combinations having Wikipedia articles
- Lists of acronyms
- Lists of airports by IATA and ICAO code
- Q code
- Recursive acronym
- Country code § Lists of country codes by country
References
- JSTOR 2777655.
The acronyms DSE and DNA have something in common: each is a three-letter acronym.
- JSTOR 3038128.
All taxa indicated by three-letter acronyms with strains indicated by a fourth letter if necessary.
- JSTOR 1220592.
- JSTOR 820897.
- Steven VickersZX81 Basic Programming, Sinclair Research Limited, page 161 "As you can see, everything has a three letter abbreviation (TLA)."
- ^ TDA Progress Report R. Hull (1982) An Introduction to the new Productivity Information Management System page 176
- ^ On the cruelty of really teaching computer science
- ^ Dan Gookin (1992) The Microsoft Guide to Optimizing Windows page 211
- ^ "DigiSpeak: A Glossary of the New Lingo". bryn mawr alumnae bulletin. Bryn Mawr College Alumnae Association. May 2011. Retrieved August 14, 2016.