One of our friends recently returned to the workplace after living abroad for a few years.
She enjoys the job, and I do not doubt that she is performing excellently.
However, she did raise a point that I had not realised has been bothering me for a while.
The world has too many acronyms.
She has started working for a law firm, with acronyms for various internal processes as well as supposedly well-established legal jargon. There is also a predilection for describing clients, colleagues and everyone else with either 3, 2 or in the worst instances 1 letter. ‘B wants to speak to APS about…’
At work today I received a call from someone asking what I was doing about my EFT’s, CCL and R+D Tax Credits. The latter one I could talk about with some authority – ‘don’t touch them with a bargepole unless you are genuinely innovating’. The other two acronyms less so.
At least by looking up the acronyms on a tax website I discovered the existence of a body know as OTS- the office of Tax Simplification. That really is something I would happily support, especially if they supported giving everything a proper name instead of just an assortment of random scrabble letters.
Even in the simple and well-established world of football, acronyms are seeping into our consciousness. American commentators are very taken by the idea of a ‘PK’. It may save time on saying ‘Penalty Kick’, but surely the sensible compromise is to say ‘Penalty’, like we have always done.
When I was running a junior grassroots football team, players were starting to ask who would be ‘CDM’. I had thought that this was reference to some sort of clever software that tracks sales pipelines, ensuring that everyone in a sales company is pulling in the right direction. Sadly not, this is a reference to a ‘Central Defensive Midfielder’. In fairness this is slightly better than asking who would be ‘Number 6’ in an era where shirt numbers are totally random.
Anyone volunteering in grassroots football locally needs to know their BCGFL from their EBYFL, their CFA, in our case, the BBFA, from the FA.
Another frustration is that all too frequently when people are interviewed on the radio, they are thanked for their time and there is a quick mention of their organisation. ‘Thank you, that was John Smith from the AFGTP’. We are left with no idea whether they are a representative of a trade body, a union, a legal practice, a pressure group, or just somebody who fancied being on the radio.
Some acronyms can however be quite ingenious. I was asking about an acquaintance I had in common with a colleague. He earnestly responded that they had had a decent meeting, he quite liked the guy but thought that was a little ‘O.D.D’. Being unfamiliar with this term, I asked what does that stand for? ‘Odd’ came the inevitable response.
I have no idea whether this is an urban myth, but I have heard that when auditors are a little cynical at an explanation from a client, they add the letters LOB to their notes. This is so that when they write their subsequent report have a reminder of the comment that they had considered to be ‘a load of baloney’, or words to that effect.
By Neil Coupe
