Received Abbreviations: Use Shorthand Your Readers Get

I’ve spent more than ten years wrangling language for a living—emails, apps, policy pages, the occasional passive-aggressive sticky note—and I keep tripping over the same thing: when a shorthand is actually understood. That’s what I mean when I say received abbreviation. Not fancy, just received. As in, people actually get it. In my experience, an abbreviation only earns its keep when your readers accept it without stopping. Acronym, initialism, contraction, SMS slang, chat shorthand—whatever label you slap on it—the point is speed and clarity. Plain language, not pain language. And yes, I’m the one muttering about style guides in the corner while someone types “ASAP!!!” into a subject line.

Why I care (and why you should too)

I like writing that lets my brain stay lazy. Not dumb. Lazy. I want one glance, one beat, and done. If an abbreviation makes people pause, reread, or ping a coworker with “uh, what’s ETA again?,” it hasn’t been received. It’s a speed bump. And enough speed bumps and your readers take another route. Usually to TikTok, where the dopamine hits faster.

I’ve always found that shorthands don’t fail because writers are bad. They fail because the audience is mixed, tired, or from five different teams with five different dialects. Finance-speak, product jargon, marketing buzz, legalese. A zoo. Not a fun zoo.

What counts as an abbreviation? Let’s keep it simple

If you want the formal stuff, you can peek at this tidy summary of abbreviations. Or if you’re into the edit nerd life, yes, contractions are a subtype—see the bit on contractions. But here’s my quick-and-human breakdown:

• Abbreviation: any cut-down form (Dr., Dept., approx.).
• Acronym: you read it like a word (NASA, SCUBA).
• Initialism: you spell it letter by letter (FBI, DIY, ETA).
• Contraction: you squish letters out (can’t, isn’t, I’m).
• Chat slang: stuff from texts and social (IDK, WSG, SMH).

And then there’s the rare creature no one agrees on: is GIF hard G or soft G? I will not fight about this again. I carry scars.

What I think “received” really means

“Received” is me stealing a vibe from “Received Pronunciation,” which was the posh way of saying “the accent everyone pretends is standard.” Same energy here. A received abbreviation is one your readers treat as normal. No blink. No friction. It’s not official because a PDF says so. It’s official because your people already use it in real life.

So, if your team and your customers both say “FAQ” and never “Frequently Asked Questions,” then congrats. That one’s received. But if someone writes “TQP” (totally a thing I saw in a meeting note, still no idea), that’s not received. That’s a cry for help.

How abbreviations spread (the pipeline, aka the chaos)

From niche to everyday

• Stage 1: A tiny group invents it to save time. Slack jokes, hand-written labels, whiteboard scribbles.
• Stage 2: It leaks into emails and docs, sometimes a deck. Only insiders nod.
• Stage 3: Someone puts it on a button or a menu. Oops. Now regular humans see it.
• Stage 4: Support tickets explode. You “clarify.” You add a tooltip. Eventually, you spell it out.

In my experience, the pain starts at Stage 3. We assume the wider world reads our private codes. It doesn’t. My fix is dumb and works: spell it the first time, then use the short form. If it’s still clunky, it wasn’t ready for prime time.

The moment I learned the hard way

I once sent a company-wide email with “EOM” in the subject line. You know, “End of Message,” the polite trick that means “don’t open this, all the info is right here.” My logic: efficient. The outcome: one person wrote back “What’s EOM?” Another person replied all. Thread blew up. I lost fifteen minutes to explain a three-letter shortcut. Which is wild, right? I tried to save time and wasted more.

Takeaway: if the time you save yourself gets billed back to your readers, you didn’t save anything.

Rules from the grownups (style guides) and my shortcuts

When I’m not being stubborn, I do check the boring-but-useful stuff. The U.S. government’s plain language team makes a solid case here: abbreviations and acronyms. The UK folks keep a strict list too: abbreviations and acronyms. And if you’re extra, the GPO Style Manual (PDF) is the deep end.

My rules when no one’s watching

• Spell it out the first time unless it’s painfully obvious (USA, NASA, FAQ).
• One abbreviation per sentence max. Two if you really must. Three and I’m staging an intervention.
• No new abbreviations in headings. People skim. Don’t make skim harder.
• Tooltips and glossaries are nice. Plain words are nicer.
• If your mom, your intern, and your lawyer all get it, you’re good.

Quick table: when to say the whole thing, when to shorten

• First mention in a doc — write the full term (short form) after it.
• UI buttons — avoid abbreviations unless space is brutal and the term is common (e.g., FAQ).
• Emails — use common initialisms (FYI, ETA) only if the audience is known.
• Legal/medical — spell it. Always. Lives or money on the line.
• Blog posts — depends. If it feels like a speed bump, spell it.

The three checks I do before I use any shorthand

Frequency

Will this term repeat a lot? If yes, a short form can help. If it shows up once, I don’t bother. Saving two characters one time isn’t a win.

Familiarity

Do my readers already use it? If not, I get one free pass to teach it. After that, it better stick. If it doesn’t, I drop it.

Formality

Is this casual or official? The more formal the setting, the less shorthand I use. I like my promotions and my compliance forms abbreviation-free.

Common traps (and how I dodge them, most days)

• ASL: to some, American Sign Language. To others, “age/sex/location.” Context matters. A lot.
• ETA: estimated time of arrival. People also read it as “edited to add” in forums. Again, context.
• TBD vs. TBA: “to be determined” versus “to be announced.” I’ve seen both used like confetti.
• RCA: root cause analysis or the old record label? Teams argue. I nap.
• RIP: tech folks mean “routing information protocol.” Most people think… well, you know.

What I do: if a term has a famous double meaning, I write the long form the first time, even if it feels clunky. Rather be clear than clever.

Internet slang corner (because I live there, apparently)

Stuff like IDK, IKR, SMH, IMO—these are fine inside chat. But when I write for regular users, I pick my battles. A teenager might know “WSG” from TikTok. A parent might not. If you’re curious, I’ve broken that one down here: what does WSG mean. One page, quick read. I keep it in my back pocket when a stakeholder says “Let’s sound more Gen Z.” I drink water. I take a walk.

Signals that an abbreviation is “received” (or not)

• People repeat it back to you unprompted. Not because you wrote it. Because they already used it.
• It shows up in help tickets with the same meaning you intended.
• It appears in user reviews without quotes or explanations.
• There’s no spike in confusion when you A/B test the short form versus the full term.

In my experience, once an initialism passes those sniff tests, it becomes a true received abbreviation. If it fails, I put it on the Do Not Use list and move on. No hard feelings. Okay, maybe a few.

Two near-misses that still haunt me

“Auth” nightmare

I wrote “auth” in a security message. Half the team read it as authentication. The other half thought authorization. Those are not the same. We shipped “Sign-in.” Done. No one missed “auth.”

“PO” at a startup

Product Owner to Engineering. Purchase Order to Finance. Post Office to, you know, everyone else. We banned “PO” in cross-team docs and used the long form. Meetings got shorter.

Make it easy for fifth graders (and everyone else)

I write like I’m explaining it to a smart kid who has better things to do. Short sentences. Plain words. Examples. It’s not dumbing down. It’s being kind. If a 10-year-old and your boss can both read it fast, you win.

Little test I run

• I ask one person outside the project to read the first paragraph.
• If they blink at an abbreviation, I spell it out.
• If they roll their eyes at me, I buy coffee and try again.

“Tables” you can steal (aka cheat sheets without the grid)

Quick table: common work abbreviations and what people really mean

• FYI — For your information — I need you to read this, but I won’t say that out loud.
• ETA — Estimated time of arrival — When will this land? No, really, when?
• EOD — End of day — Which time zone? Please specify. I beg.
• TBD — To be determined — We don’t know. We might never know.
• ASAP — As soon as possible — Yesterday. Or next week. Depends who sends it.
• TL;DR — Too long; didn’t read — Summary incoming. Save me.
• N/A — Not applicable — Or I don’t have the data. Or I forgot.
• FWIW — For what it’s worth — It’s worth something. Promise.

Quick table: when to teach vs. when to trust

• Known to the general public (FAQ, USB, Wi‑Fi) — Trust.
• Known to your industry only (OKR, ICP, NPS) — Teach first, then test.
• Known to your team only (SIT rev, TQP, A/BX) — Spell it out, or don’t use it at all.

Quick table: short forms I let in the UI without fighting

• FAQ — People know it. Save the pixels.
• SMS — Most folks get it as “text message.” If not, pair it with “text.”
• ETA — Okay in tracking screens. Not in legal notices.
• PDF — Yes. Everyone’s wrestled a PDF.

Teach once, then keep it consistent

What I’ve learned is simple. If you introduce a shorthand, lock the form and don’t wiggle. Write “Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)” once, then stick with MFA. Don’t jump to 2FA later. Pick one. Your reader shouldn’t have to keep a scoreboard.

The basic pattern that saves me

• First hit: write the full term, add the short in parentheses.
• Later hits: just the short form.
• New section or new page: decide if you need to teach again. If in doubt, teach again.

When the boss says “Make it snappier”

Yes, shorter often reads faster. But shorter also hides meaning if you cut too deep. I’ve found it’s better to shorten sentences, not words. Keep verbs strong. Drop filler. Only then use a shorthand if it truly helps.

Received by whom? That’s the question

Every audience is a small language town. What’s received on one street isn’t received on another. Teens might nod at WSG. Engineers nod at API. Teachers nod at GPA. My test isn’t “Is it short?” It’s “Is it shared?” If it isn’t shared, it isn’t a received abbreviation. It’s a private joke in a public place.

Edge cases where I go slow

Medical and legal

I don’t mess around. Full terms first. Short forms copy-edited by someone who lives in that world. If a patient or a judge can misread it, I rewrite it.

Safety and finance

Same rule. If a number changes or a warning is misread because of a shortcut, that’s on me. I keep it boring and clear. Boring is underrated.

What style guides won’t say out loud (but I will)

• If you need a glossary for a basic onboarding email, you lost.
• If the acronym makes your deck look smart but makes your readers feel dumb, you lost again.
• If two teams fight over a short form, pick the long form and go get coffee. Peace achieved.

My lazy little workflow for new shorthands

• Collect: when a new term shows up, I screenshot it and throw it in a notes doc.
• Check: is it common in our user messages or just our Slack? If it’s just ours, pass.
• Pilot: try it in one low-stakes spot with the long-first, short-after pattern.
• Measure: look at clicks, support tickets, and “Huh?” messages.
• Decide: promote it to “received” status or delete it from the doc. No graveyards. Just gone.

A few overused bits I quietly retire

• AKA in docs. I just write “also called.” Less cute. More clear.
• W/ and W/O in emails to users. I type “with” and “without.” It’s fine.
• Pls, Thx in formal messages. I like manners with all the vowels.
• Note: I keep TL;DR. That one pays rent.

Reader signals I watch like a hawk

• Do people copy my short form in replies? Great.
• Do they switch back to long form? Uh oh.
• Do they ask for definitions? Teach again or drop it.
• Do support folks rephrase it into plain words? That’s the final verdict right there.

The part where I admit I’m not perfect

I still over-shorten. I still fall in love with little codes. I still think “auth” is cute sometimes. And I still get notes from my future self saying “spell it out.” The goal isn’t to ban abbreviations. It’s to make sure the ones we keep are, well, received. If they aren’t, they go. Even if I like them. Even if my team named a whole project around them. The delete key has feelings too.

FAQs I keep getting about abbreviations

• Is there a master list I can follow so I never mess up again? — I wish. Start with your own team’s list and the public stuff (FAQ, PDF, USB). Then test, test.
• Should I always spell out on first use? — Almost always. If it’s as common as NASA or FAQ, you’re fine. Otherwise, teach once.
• What about texting slang in official emails? — Use sparingly. IMO and IDK are fine inside teams. For customers, write the words.
• How many abbreviations is too many in one paragraph? — If I see two, my eyes start to glaze. One’s comfy. Two’s risky. Three’s chaos.
• Do I need a style guide for this? — A one-page list helps a lot. If you’re fancy, borrow from the plain language rules and the GOV.UK style.

One last thing

I wrote this whole rant because I keep seeing teams argue over the wrong question: “Is this shorter?” The real one is: “Is this shared?” If your readers haven’t received it, it’s not a received abbreviation, and it’s not helping you. Spell it out. Breathe. Save the clever stuff for the group chat. I do. Most days, anyway.

Lucas

Hey, I’m Lucas. My blog explores the patterns and connects the dots between tech, business, and gaming. If you’re a curious mind who loves to see how different worlds intersect, you’re in the right place.