A three letter acronym (commonly referred to as a TLA) is an abbreviation, an alphabetism, an initialism or an acronym consisting of three letters. Many of the abbreviations described as "three letter acronyms" are initialisms, which some definitions of acronym do not include (See acronym and initialism). Nevertheless, "Three letter acronym" is commonly used for any set of three letters used as an abbreviation.
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History and origins
The first known use of the term "TLA" was by Texas Instruments Inc. employees in the Industrial Systems Division circa 1984. 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 to simply report that they were working on product "TLA" as an ironic self-reference. Use of "TLA" spread through both industry and academia, and now has become a generally understood initialism.[1] For a complete discussion of the various forms of abbreviations, acronyms and other letter substitutions, see Acronym and initialism.
Other information
- Another use of TLA is "three-letter agency", referring to a law enforcement or intelligence agency with a three-letter name abbreviation, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency.
- 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 exhaustive listing of TLAs can be found in Category:Lists of TLAs.
- In English, WWW is the longest possible TLA to pronounce, requiring nine syllables. Although in written English it is an abbreviation, in spoken English it may use more syllables than that which it is abbreviating.[2] There is more information at Pronunciation of "www".
References in popular culture
- As early as 1967, the musical Hair included the song "Initials", whose chorus consisted only of TLAs. Viz: "LBJ IRT USA LSD. LSD LBJ FBI CIA. FBI CIA LSD LBJ."
- In 1986 Will Shatter of the band Flipper formed a band named "Any Three Initials" (ATI), as a parody of the preponderance of hardcore punk bands with three-initial names.
- In 1998 the British band Love and Rockets released their last album, Lift, featuring the song "R.I.P. 20 C." that, apart from the refrain, consists only of three-letter abbreviations. A contest was held rewarding the first to correctly give the meanings of all 69 of them.
- In 1999 German hip-hop group Die Fantastischen Vier (The Fantastic Four) released the song "MfG" ("Mit freundlichen Grüßen" - German for "best regards", literally "with friendly regards"), also mainly consisting of TLAs.[3]
- In 1999, the author Douglas Adams remarked: "The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it's short for."[4]
- According to the Jargon File, a journalist once asked hacker Paul Boutin what he thought the biggest problem in computing in the 1990s would be. Paul's straight-faced response was, "There are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms."
- The Jargon File also mentions the term "ETLA" for "Extended Three Letter Acronym" to refer to four letter acronyms/abbreviations. Also, "Extended Three Letter Acronym" is sometimes abbreviated to "XTLA".
See also
- Category:Lists of TLAs
- RAS syndrome
- List of acronyms and initialisms
- List of all two-letter combinations
- List of computing and IT abbreviations
- List of three-letter broadcast callsigns in the United States
- List of airports by IATA code
- List of IOC country codes
- ISO 4217 (currency code)
Footnotes
- ^ See Wiktionary.
- ^ i.e. dou-ble-u dou-ble-u dou-ble-u = 9 syllables, whereas most of the entries on WWW (disambiguation) are pronounced in 3 syllables.
- ^ Lyrics of "MfG"
- ^ Douglas Adams, The Independent on Sunday, 1999
External links
- Abbreviations.com — A directory and search engine for acronyms, initialisms, and other abbreviations.
- Acronymfinder.com — Resource to find multiple meanings of acronyms, sorted by type.
- TLA Wörterbuch - Casia TLA collection.
- GTF - the GPL'ed TLA FAQ.
- The Great Abbreviations Hunt - A TLA for every combination of letters.
- AuctionSlanguage.com - A resource to find meanings of acronyms and abbreviations used on auction sites. Includes many TLA's like NWT and HTF.
