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For the uninitiated of this world, or to be precise the acronym free of this world, if you’d just been referred to as a P.I.T.A. you might be quite flattered. On the other hand you might not, for P.I.T.A. quite simply means, "Pain In The Arse", and with the added U R A well …you get the picture.

But just what exactly is an acronym? My understanding was that it was an abbreviation created from a series of words, with the added bonus that it could be pronounced as a word i.e. NASA meaning National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But now I’m starting to wonder. Everywhere I go I’m introduced to more and more of these acronym created words, and pretty much most of them can’t be pronounced as a word, no matter how good your phonetic skills are.

Take this sentence for example, “The QC dept needs UAT with the WTO before advising the CRM.” Means nothing to you or I, but translate it and you get “ The Quality Control Department needs User Acceptance Testing with the World Trade Organisation before advising the Customer Relations Manager. Ah now it all makes sense I hear you cry.

Government Institutions, Big Business, you name it they’re doing it. Acronym explosion exists, and this is a problem. Try going to a meeting where you are the only one present who is not au fait with the colloquialisms - for that’s probably a far better word for the acronyms in use – it’s a nightmare. You just can’t understand what anybody is talking about. You end up feeling like a complete idiot when you put your hand up to ask the “stupid” question of the day, “What is a GRV?” leaving everybody around the table to gaze at you as if you’ve just broke wind.

Breaking wind or not, it’s getting out of hand. One can only assume this phenomena has evolved due to the expected speed of transmitting information by our current information society. We no longer have time to say or transcribe our intended messages in full. What we’re now in fact doing is talking in shorthand. We’ve taken the – some may say - outdated skill of note taking by the cherished Secretary, who would then laboriously transcribe it for distribution, and taken on the task ourselves, only now we say speak it.

Is there a solution to this? Perhaps a new Oxford Concise Acronym dictionary could be created. But then that would mean a global standard with agreement, and who then should be eligible to submit suggestions? Come to think of it, from a global perspective we can’t agree on the Middle East, so how will we ever agree on globally accepted acronyms? Can you just imagine a United Nations of Acronyms? The thought is horrendous. We could end up with a CEO of UNA, with a Personal Assistant who is fondly referred to as, PA 2 CEO of UNA? Would be far easier to just call her Sue.

Some will argue that we will adapt. After all we’ve survived adequately the various stages of communication, including smoke signals and hieroglyphics. I have to wonder though if this time we’ve got just a little bit too clever for comfort.