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Three-letter acronym

{{Short description|Abbreviation consisting of three letters}}

{{original research|date=August 2023}}

A three-letter acronym (TLA), or three-letter abbreviation is, as the phrase suggests, an abbreviation consisting of three letters. The term has a special status among abbreviations and to some is considered humorous since the term TLA is itself a three-letter acronym; it is an autological word.

Most TLAs are initialisms (the initial letter of each word of a phrase), but most are not acronyms in the strict sense since they are pronounced by saying each letter, as in APA {{IPAc-en|ˌ|eɪ|p|iː|ˈ|eɪ}} {{respell|AY|pee|AY|'}}. Some are true acronyms (pronounced as a word) such as CAT (as in CAT scan) which is pronounced as the animal.

Examples

History and origins

The exact phrase three-letter acronym appeared in the sociology literature in 1975.{{cite journal |first=M. J. |last=Levy |title=Review of The Logic of Social Systems |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=81 |issue=3 |year=1975 |jstor=2777655 |doi=10.1086/226119 |page=658 |quote=The acronyms DSE and DNA have something in common: each is a three-letter acronym.}} Three-letter acronyms were used as mnemonics in biological sciences, from 1977{{cite journal |first1=S. R. |last1=Seavey |first2=P. H. |last2=Raven |year=1977 |title=Chromosomal Differentiation and the Sources of the South American Species of Epilobium (Onagraceae) |journal=Journal of Biogeography |volume=4 |issue=1 |page=57 |doi=10.2307/3038128 |jstor=3038128 |bibcode=1977JBiog...4...55S |quote=All taxa indicated by three-letter acronyms with strains indicated by a fourth letter if necessary.}} and their practical advantage was promoted by Weber in 1982.{{cite journal |first=W. A. |last=Weber |year=1982 |title=Mnemonic Three-Letter Acronyms for the Families of Vascular Plants: A Device for More Effective Herbarium Curation |journal=Taxon |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=74–88 |jstor=1220592 |doi=10.2307/1220592}} They are used in many other fields, but the term TLA is particularly associated with computing.{{cite journal |first1=K. D. |last1=Nilsen |first2=A. P. |last2=Nilsen |year=1995 |title=Literary Metaphors and Other Linguistic Innovations in Computer Language |journal=The English Journal |volume=84 |issue=6 |pages=65–71 |jstor=820897 |doi=10.2307/820897}} In 1980, the manual for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer used and explained TLA.Steven Vickers ZX81 Basic Programming, Sinclair Research Limited, page 161 "As you can see, everything has a three letter abbreviation (TLA)." The specific generation of three-letter acronyms in computing was mentioned in a JPL report of 1982.[https://tmo.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-70/70R.PDF TDA Progress Report] R. Hull (1982) An Introduction to the new Productivity Information Management System page 176 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"[https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html On the cruelty of really teaching computer science] By 1992 it was in a Microsoft handbook.Dan Gookin (1992) The Microsoft Guide to Optimizing Windows page 211

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. Allowing a single digit 0-9 increases this by 26 × 26 × 10 = 6,760 for each position, such as 2FA, P2P, or WW2, giving a total of 37,856 such three-character strings.

Out of the 17,576 possible TLAs that can be created using 3 uppercase letters, at least 94% of them had been used at least once in a dataset of 18 million scientific article abstracts. Three-letter acronyms are the most common type of acronym in scientific research papers, with acronyms of length 3 being twice as common as those of length 2 or 4.{{Cite journal |last1=Barnett |first1=Adrian |last2=Doubleday |first2=Zoe |date=2020-07-23 |editor-last=Rodgers |editor-first=Peter |title=The growth of acronyms in the scientific literature |journal=eLife |volume=9 |pages=e60080 |doi=10.7554/eLife.60080 |doi-access=free |issn=2050-084X |pmc=7556863 |pmid=32701448}}

In standard English, WWW is the TLA whose pronunciation requires the most syllables—typically nine. The usefulness of a TLA 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.{{cite web |title=DigiSpeak: A Glossary of the New Lingo |date=May 2011 |website=bryn mawr alumnae bulletin |publisher=Bryn Mawr College Alumnae Association |url=http://bulletin.brynmawr.edu/features/digispeak-a-glossary-of-the-new-lingo/ |access-date=August 14, 2016}}

See also

{{Wiktionary|TLA}}

References

{{Reflist}}

Category:Abbreviations

Category:Acronyms