Don’t AWE your audience by using Acronyms Without Explanations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At her Maniactive blog on August 9, 2021 there is an excellent brief post by Laura Bergells titled AWE: Acronyms Without Explanation!. Using an acronym without defining it first is an awful use of jargon. It indicates you think that is NMJ (Not My Job) but it is. On July 5, 2019 I blogged about how The first time you use an acronym you need to define it.

 

Acronyms sometimes have multiple meanings. Recently many people would say that BLM obviously means Black Lives Matter. But in states like Nevada, Utah, and Idaho the older meaning is the federal Bureau of Land Management. In Nevada 81.1% of land is federally owned. Of that 83.9% is by that BLM and 10.1% % is U.S. Forest Service. In Utah 66.5% of land is federally owned. Of that 65.2% is BLM and 23.4% % is U.S. Forest Service. Here in Idaho 61.7% of land is federally owned. Of that 62.7% is U.S. Forest Service, and 35.6% is BLM. 

 

The image was adapted from a cartoon of a woman presenting a sales flow chart at Wikimedia Commons.