TLA Overload
Paul Boutin once observed that the biggest obstacle to progress in computer science may be the finite supply of TLAs — that is, Three-Letter Acronyms.
Note this: TLA is a self-describing word. (We’ll give it the status of a word for the sake of the argument.) Let’s call such a word “autological”. Now... what is the status of the word “non-autological” — is it autological or not? Heh heh...
In fact, there are just 26³ such acronyms: fewer than 18,000. No wonder there are some collisions out there. This page lists some of the ones I’ve come across “in the wild”. That is, I read of an athlete who “does LSD regularly”. (See below. That’s the TLA with the most equivalents — that I have seen.)
Since I started compiling this list of TLAs found running loose, many websites have arisen that look up acronyms. I will keep updating the list, but only with TLA ambiguities that I personally discover and puzzle over.
- AAA - Americal Automobile Associatin, American Arbitration Association
- ABS - Anti-Lock Braking System, American Bladesmith Society
- ADT - Abstract Data Type, American District Telegraph
- AES - Audio Engineering Society, Advanced Encryption Standard
- AMD - Andrew Malcolm Duncan, Advanced Micro Devices, Age-related Macular Degeneration, Active Matrix Display
- API - Application Programming Interface, Academic Performance Index
- ASA - American Standards Association, AcetylSalicylic Acid
- ATM - Automatic Teller Machine, Asynchronous Transfer Mode
- ATP - Adenosine Tri-Phosphate, Association of Tennis Professionals, Automotive Theft Protection
- BAC - Binary Asymmetric Channel, Blood Alcohol Content
- BLM - Bureau of Land Management, Black Lives Matter
- BOM - Byte Order Mark, Bill Of Materials
- CAA - Council on African Affairs, Creative Artists Agency
- CBS - Columbia Broadcasting System, Charles Bonnet Syndrome
- CCD - Charge-Coupled Device, Colony Collapse Disorder
- CDC - Control Data Corporation, Centers for Disease Control
- CFG - Control Flow Graph, Context-Free Grammar
- CFL - Consolidated Freight Lines, Context-Free Language
- CGI - Clinton Global Initiative, Common Gateway Interface, Computer Graphics Interface
- CIA - Central Intelligence Agency, Culinary Institute of America, Channel Islands Airlines, Cairo International Airport
- CIT - California Institute of Technology, Commercial Investment Trust
- CME - Continuing Medical Education, Coronal Mass Ejection, Chicago Mercantile Exchange
- CPA - Certified Public Accountant, Cost Per Acquisition, Coalition Provisional Authority
- CPU - Central Processing Unit, Cost Per Unit
- CRC - Cyclic Redundancy Check, Class-Responsibility-Collaboration, Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse, Civil Rights Congress
- CRT - Cathode Ray Tube, C Run Time
- CSV - Comma Separated Variables, Core Strategic Vision
- DAG - Directed Acyclic Graph, Diacygycerol
- DAW - Dispense As Written, Digital Audio Workstation
- DCT - Discrete Cosine Transform, Daily Conditioning Treatment, Divine Command Theory
- DES - Data Encryption Standard, Di-Ethyl Stilbestrol
- DFT - Discrete Fourier Transform, Density Functional Theory
- DNA - Deoxy-ribo Nucleic Acid, National Directorate for Anticorruption (Romanian)
- DNS - Do Not Substitute, Domain Name Server
- DOB — Date of Birth, Daughters of Bilitis, Dimethoxybromoamphetamine
- DOJ - Department Of Justice, Drunk On Job
- DOM - Document Object Model, 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-Methylamphetamine
- DOS - Disk Operating System, Denial Of Service
- DSL - Digital Subscriber Line, Domain-Specific Language
- DSP - Digital Signal Processing, Disabled Students Program
- DVM - Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Distance Vector Multicast
- EDL - Edit Decision List, Entry Descent and Landing
- EIA - Engineering Institute of America, Exercise-Induced Asthma
- EMT - Emergency Medical Technician, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition
- EOF - End Of File, Enterprise Objects Framework
- EPA - Environmental Protection Agency, EicosaPentaenoic Acid
- EPR - Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen, Electron Paramagnetic Resonance, Expert Professional Repair
- EPS - Encapsulated PostScript, Earnings Per Share, Engineering Production Support
- FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fragile Binary Interface
- FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Flight Data Recorder
- FRB - Fast Radio Burst, Front-Running Bastard
- FTP - File Transfer Protocol, Free The People
- FSM - Finite State Machine, Flying Spaghetti Monster
- GCC - Gnu Compiler Collection, Gulf Coast Community, Gulf Cooperation Council, Glendale Community College
- GCD - Greatest Common Divisor, Grand Central Dispatch
- GMT - Greenwich Mean Time, Giant Magellan Telescope
- HRC - Human Rights Campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton
- HSV - Hue-Saturation-Value, Herpes Simplex Virus
- ICU - Intensive Care Unit, International Components for Unicode
- IED - Improvised Explosive Device, Intermittent Explosive Disorder
- IRA - Individual Retirement Account, Irish Republican Army
- IRC - Internet Relay Chat, Instructor Resource Center
- ISA - Industry Standard Architecture, Infectious Salmon Anemia, Instruction Set Architecture, International Students Association
- ISO - International Standards Organization, Incentive Stock Option, In Search Of
- ISP - Internet Service Provider, Idaho [presumably others too] State Police
- JGB - Japanese Government Bonds, Jerry Garcia Band
- KVM - Keyboard-Video-Mouse, Kernel-Based Virtual Machine
- LED - Light Emitting Diode, Louisiana Economic Development
- LOL - Lots Of Love, Laughing Out Loud
- LSA - Lysergic Acid [Säuer in German] Amide, Leaving the Scene of an Accident
- LSD - Lysergic Acid [Säuer in German] Diethylamide, Long Slow Distance, Librae Solidi Denarii [Pounds Shillings Pence in Latin], Line Sharing Device, Limited Slip Differential, Least Significant Digit
- LWP - Light Weight Process, Library for WWW in Perl
- MDA - Model-Driven Architecture, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Methylene Dioxy-Amphetamine
- MEK - Methyl Ethyl Ketone, Mujahedin-e Khalq
- MNF - MiNnesota Fortran, Multi-National Force/li>
- MSG - Mono-Sodium Glutamate, Madison Square Garden
- MSM - MainStream Media, Men who have Sex with Men
- MTV - Music TeleVision, Model-Template-View
- MVP - Most Valuable Player, Minimum Viable Product
- NDA - Non-Disclosure Agreement, New Drug Application
- NIH - National Institute of Health, Not Invented Here
- NPR - National Public Radio, NeuroPeptide Receptor
- NRA - National Rifle Association, National Recovery Administration
- NSA - National Security Administration, No Strings Attached, No Such Agency
- NSP - Northern States Power, National Skills Panel
- OBE - Order of the British Empire, Out of Body Experience
- OCR - Optical Character Recognition, Ocean-Canyon-Ridge, Office of Civil Rights
- OMG - Oh My God, Outlaw Motorcycle Gang
- OOP - Out Of Pocket, Object-Oriented Programming
- PAC - Political Action Committee, Performing Arts Center
- PBS - Public Broadcasting System, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
- PCB - Poly-Chlorinated Biphenyl, Process Control Block, Printed Circuit Board, Pakistan Cricket Board
- PCH - Pacific Coast Highway, Publisher's Clearing House, Pre-Compiled Header
- PCR - Polymerase Chain Reaction, Peak Cell Rate, Communist Party of Romania
- PCM - Pulse Code Modulation, Please Call Me
- PDA - Personal Digital Assistant, Push-Down Automaton, Public Display of Affection, Progressive Democrats of America, Pregnancy Discrimination Act
- PDF - Portable Document Format, Probability Density Function, Pigment Dispersing Factor
- PDR - Physician's Desk Reference, Playa Del Rey
- PGP - Pretty Good Privacy, Personal Genome Project, Preferred Gender Pronoun
- PIM - Platform-Independent Model, Personal Information Manager
- PLA - People’s Liberation Army, Programmable Logic Array
- PNG - Portable Network Graphic, Papua-New Guinea
- POS - Point Of Sale, Piece Of Shit
- PPC - Power PC, Pay Per Click
- PRL - Physical Review Letters, Philips Research Labs
- PSA - Public Service Announcement, Prostate Surface Antigen, Production Sharing Agreement, Professional Squash Association
- RAF - Royal Air Force, Red Army Faction
- RMA - Return Merchandise Authorization, Resource Management Account
- RPG - Rocket-Propelled Grenade, Role-Playing Game
- ROI - Return On Investment, Result Of Investigation
- ROM - Read-Only Memory, Range Of Motion
- SCI - Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, String Cheese Incident, Spinal Cord Injury
- SDI - State Disability Insurance, Strategic Defense Initiative
- SDK - Software Development Kit, Streamlined Dolphin Kick
- SEC - South Eastern Conference, Securities and Exchange Commission
- SLA - Software Licensing Agreement, Symbionese Liberation Army
- SLO - San Luis Obispo, Student Learning Outcome
- SLR - Single-Lens Reflex, Sea-Level Rise
- SNP - Single Nucleotide Polymorphism, Scottish National Party
- SOB - Shortness of Breath, Son Of a Bitch
- SPL - Sound Pressure Level, Standard PHP Library
- STD - System Target Decoder, Sexually Transmitted Disease, Subscriber Trunk Dialing
- SWF - ShockWave Flash, Single White Female
- TCL - Transfer, Clipping, and Lighting, Tool Control Language
- THC - ThermoHaline Circulation, Tetra Hydro Cannabinol
- TLA - Three-Letter Acronym, Trial Lawyers Association, ...
- TLC - Tender Loving Care, The Learning Channel
- TPA - Third Party Administrator, Tissue Plasminogen Activator
- TTL - Transistor-Transistor Logic, Time To Live, Through The Lens
- UCC - United Church of Christ, Upper Class Counselor
- UCI - Union Cycliste International, University of California at Irvine
- UPS - Uninterruptable Power Supply, United Parcel Service
- USC - University of Southern California, United Somali Congress
- WPA - Works Progress Administration, Wi-Fi Protected Access
- WTC - World Trade Center, Well-Tempered Clavier