Do you want your communications to be clear CMA confusing CMA or annoying PD

Huh?

That's how the surging waves of important cables Dwight Eisenhower received daily while planning the D-Day invasion were composed. Punctuation and numbers were written out; words were abbreviated. CHARLIE CHARLIE, for example, was cable-ese for the Combined Chiefs in Washington.

Reading those cables exhausted and irritated a very busy leader, according to Michael Paradis's new book, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day and the Birth of the American Superpower.

"Goddamn," Eisenhower said in frustration, "I get tired having to read all these Charlie Charlie," in multiple messages.

For the record, CMA meant comma. PD was for the period at the end of a sentence.

Storming beaches not required.

This isn't just a problem for military commanders. There isn't an organization or an industry on the planet that doesn't have a well-stocked glossary of abbreviations and acronyms.

Mostly they're used in-house but occasionally they sneak out to a wider audience.

My years in the aerospace industry gave me a full-immersion language course in the sometimes obscure argot of aerospace engineers.

And politicians appear to work overtime coming up with what they hope are clever acronyms for their legislative proposals. There's the DAYLIGHT Act i.e. Daylight All Year Leads to Ideal Gains in Happiness and Temperament and the ZOMBIE Act i.e. Zeroing Out Money for Buying Influence after Elections. (See: "How Did America End Up with the ZOMBIE Act?" by Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 11/12/2022.)

You might want to believe that the academic world, firmly rooted as it is in the liberal arts, could avoid baffling shorthand and silly acronyms.

Alas, that's not the case.

There are instances where even the term "liberal arts" is reduced to the initials L.A. and stuffed into an acronym that sacrifices meaning for no good reason. Perhaps that one was the handiwork of college administrators with time on their hands.

OK. I get it.

Admittedly, acronyms and abbreviations could serve a purpose. They might save time. That would appear to be a primary reason why many exist.

They might also make an idea more memorable, although some of the legislative acronyms just seem unserious and dumb.

Yet there's an obvious risk that contrived shorthand terms fence out readers who aren't among the initiated.

It's essential to consider your audience before sprinkling a generous helping of acronyms over your communications work.

That applies even when you're addressing an in-house audience. Abbreviations and acronyms can muddle any message.

When drafting, editing, and revising your work, ask yourself:

1. Is it correct to assume that the acronyms you use are understandable to everyone you're attempting to reach?
2. Can they become a distraction from what you hope to communicate?
3. Is it possible that you are using them simply to demonstrate that you're in the know?
4. Finally, ask yourself the "Eisenhower question." Will the acronyms you use annoy or distract busy audience members even if they do know what they mean?

Effective business writing demands clarity period, not a PD.