We all know a TLA is a Three Letter Acronym, right?
And an ETLA is an Extended Three Letter Acronym.
And a DETLA is a Double Extended Three Letter Acronym.

Is there a respectable self-referential two letter acronym?

Adrian

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +
|  Adrian Jackson  |  a.g.jack...@durham.ac.uk  |  27 North Bailey, DURHAM |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +
| Cat:    Don't fish swim south for the winter?                            |
| Kryten: That's birds, sir.                                               |
| Cat:    Birds swim south for the winter? How do they breathe?            |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------- +

In article <2i3ji4$...@mercury.dur.ac.uk> A G Jackson <A.G.Jack...@durham.ac.uk> writes:

How about  SA  (Short Acronym)

Or NSSABHIIA  Not So Short Acronym, But Here It Is Anyway.

--
   __                                    __  
 \ oo /      sdl7...@cs.rit.edu         ///    "He who dies with the
  `--'                               __///        most toys...  IS DEAD."
  _/|_     je...@mail.csh.rit.edu    \\//                    

In article <2i3ji4$...@mercury.dur.ac.uk>,
A G Jackson  <A.G.Jack...@durham.ac.uk> wrote:
| We all know a TLA is a Three Letter Acronym, right?
| And an ETLA is an Extended Three Letter Acronym.
| And a DETLA is a Double Extended Three Letter Acronym.
|
| Is there a respectable self-referential two letter acronym?

Double Acronym?
Midget Acronym?
Little Acronym?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
Dianne Kyra Hackborn      "Thanks to our schools and political leadership,
hack...@xanth.cs.orst.edu  the U.S. has acquired an international reputation
BIX: dhack / IRC: Dianne   as the home of 250 million people dumb enough to
Oregon State University    buy 'The Wacky Wall-Walker.'"      -- Frank Zappa

/*
 * s/Acronym/Abbreviation/g where necessary.
 */

In article <2i3ji4$...@mercury.dur.ac.uk> of alt.tla,
        A G Jackson <A.G.Jack...@durham.ac.uk> doodled:

I prefer to use:

FETLA   :       Further Extended Three Letter Acronym,  as I can then have
EFETLA  :       Excessively Further Extended Three Letter Acronym

How about using

DA      :       Digraphic Acronym  /* created by Alun Jones, a...@aber.ac.uk */

Which makes my personal sequence of acronyms:

A       :       Acronym
DA      :       Digraphic Acronym
TLA     :       Three Letter Acronym
ETLA    :       Extended Three Letter Acronym
FETLA   :       Further Extended Three Letter Acronym
EFETLA  :       Excessively Extended Three Letter Acronym
DEFETLA :       Double Excessively Extended Three Letter Acronym
                [reserved for ISO committee use]

(you can tell I should be doing some work, can't you..)
Chris
--
  Christopher Samuel, Computer Unit, U.W Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth, WALES
E-mail: c...@aber.ac.uk   PGP key available via finger   ICBM: 52.24'N, 4.4'W
NewModelArmyTheLevellersTheSistersOfMercyNineInchNailsTheFieldsOfTheNephili m
AnhrefnDeadKennedysTheClashLardTheCultBahausDreadZepplinMetallicaJelloBiafr a

Why not, after TLA, use

ETLA    : Extended Three-Letter Acronym
TETLA   : Twice ETLA
TTETLA  : Three Times ETLA
ETTETLA : Extended TTETLA
TETTETLA: Twice ETTETLA
TTETTETLA: (... you get the idea...) ?

We could then have a E((TTE)**3)TLA  ... an "Extended Three Times extended
Three Times Extended Three Times Extended Three Letter Acronym" :-)

We could probably make a recursive BNF for this ... am I over the edge
yet ? :-)

best regards // Christian Brunschen

| Christian Brunschen, Husmansv. 26, S-227 38 Lund, Sweden             |
| voice/fax/data +46 (0)46 139345, email d8...@efd.lth.se              |
| PGP 2.2 Public Key available on request. | ObCelebrityQuote:         |
| "Oh, foo."                                                           |
|     - Andrew R. Koenig (a...@research.att.com) after dropping a piece |
|       of chalk during a lecture on C++ in Lund, Sweden, April 1993   |

Sorry, that's TLA/E

TLA/E2, perhaps

--
Lesley Walker, Wellington, New Zealand.      Wolves converge on their prey in
leat...@phobos.actrix.gen.nz               packs in order to get food.  Human
s=walker,g=lesley,o=gcs,      XV1000    beings, being more intelligent, do it
p=gcs,a=gcsmail,c=nz       DoD#258    for entertainment.   -- Rosemary McLeod

In article <1994Jan31.162957.7...@inmos.co.uk>, f...@inmos.co.uk (Anthony Finch (PFUE)) writes:
|> In article <hceStAlDBh1...@phobos.actrix.gen.nz> leat...@phobos.actrix.gen.nz (The Leather Goddess) writes:
|> >>A G Jackson <A.G.Jack...@durham.ac.uk> doodled:
|> >>> We all know a TLA is a Three Letter Acronym, right?
|> >>> And an ETLA is an Extended Three Letter Acronym.
|> >
|> >Sorry, that's TLA/E
|> >
|> >>> And a DETLA is a Double Extended Three Letter Acronym.
|> >
|> >TLA/E2, perhaps
|>
|> Does anyone commonly use the word "initialism"?
|>
|> I had an argument with a pedant over its validity, and it turns out that
|> initialisms are spelled out (like TLA) whereas acronyms are (usually)
|> pronounced (like DOS).
|>
|> Anthony Finch - f...@inmos.co.uk

Well, the definition of acronym is expanding (so I'm told) to include initialisms, and I dont think there's anything we can do about it.

And my understanding is that ETLA means a TLA that includes another TLA as one of its letters, eg: ASE = Autodesk SQL Extension.  And I apologize for using and initialism for this example.  So a four letter abbreviation can maybe be an FLA? (making ETLA an FLA).  I rather prefer the term "initialism" for abbreviations that can't be pronounced, but I think we're in the minority on this issue.  I also think that TLA should mean three letter ABBREVIATION, not acronym.  It makes it much more clear and truly se
lf-referential. (TLA is a TLA for TLA!).
Just my opinions...

Stephen