Too Many Acronyms

Too Long Did not Read (TLDR): Acronyms are getting out of hand and we need to do something about it.

These days, people take too many shortcuts. What ever happened to verbosity? Certain tools designed to make humans more productive have actually resulted in blockers to productivity and understanding. As Seen on TV products are a great example of such tools. The Snuggie for instance is a blanket that aims to free humans' hands from the clutches of comfort. The actual result is inhibited relaxation capabilities. With your hands free, you feel inclined to do something productive, thus leaving you less relaxed than you would have been with a regular blanket. I could write a whole blog post about the Snuggie alone, but today I have a bone to pick with acronyms.

While acronyms aim to increase productivity and efficiency in speech, they more often leave people confused or complacent with not knowing what the acronym stands for. This leads to improper usage of acronyms and general misinformation.

I want to disclaim that I am misusing the word acronym in some of the cases I will discuss. An acronym is technically an initialism that creates a new word-ish thing that you pronounce. For example, LASER would be an acronym because you say lay-zuhr, but LOL would be an initialism because peole typically say el-oh-el instead of lawl. I am just going to call all of these acronyms for the rest of the blog post because I can't be bothered.

The Usage Problem

It is my firm belief that you should understand the words that make up an acronym before using it in common speech. If everyone did this, I might even like acronyms, but I gave up on that dream a long time ago. Unlike a relational database, I am not very quick at looking things up and everytime I come across an unfamiliar acronym I have to make an unwanted detour to the almighty google. While the use of an acronym may assist the writer of an article, it puts the heavy lifting on the reader. I consider this selfish and in bad taste. It's one thing if you define the acronym prior to using it, but rather condescending if you don't.

Popular Acronyms

In some cases, an acronym is so widely known that defining it upfront may seem like a waste of time. Everyone knows LOL, FYI, BTW, and TTYL; but not everyone knows LED, OCD, or DVD. We throw these acronyms around because we think we know what they mean, but do we really? I think this really becomes a problem when the acronym becomes more popular than the underlying words that compose them.

An Alternative

When you mix flour, eggs, and water; you create bread. Nobody calls it FEW. When someone put these three things together to create a new thing, they gave it a new name.

When you birth a child, you give it a brand new name. That child is a new and unique human, not simply the compilation of a few people.

Why can't we do the same thing instead of acronyms? Instead of calling a Digital Video Disc a DVD, let's call it a flomp! This is so much more memorable... Once upon a time, someone looked at an amphibious creature and named that thing frog and I'll be darned if they didn't nail that name. I believe we should exercise our ability to create new words!!

Conclusion

In all reality, I understand the usefulness of acronyms as a whole; I just want fewer of them. As soon as you start working in a specialized field or diving into a niche hobby, you will inevitably run into a few acronyms you don't understand. Ultimately, acronyms should be used sparingly and in good taste. I encourage you to understand an acronym before using it. I also encourage you to teach others about acronyms when using lesser-known ones.

TTFN, BRB with another BP. TTYL.