TLA
       Three Letter Acronym (slang)

	

	TLA
 /T?L?A/, n.

    [Three-Letter Acronym]

    1. Self-describing abbreviation for a species with which computing
    terminology is infested.

    2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS,
    DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA. People who like this looser usage argue that not all
    TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter words have four
    letters. One also hears of ?ETLA? (Extended Three-Letter Acronym,
    pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to describe four-letter acronyms; the
    terms ?SFLA? (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym), ?LFLA? (Longer Four Letter
    Acronym), and VLFLA (Very Long Five Letter Acronym) have also been
    reported. See also YABA.

    The self-effacing phrase ?TDM TLA? (Too Damn Many...) is often used to
    bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a random of the journalistic
    persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin ?What do you think will be the biggest
    problem in computing in the 90s?? Paul's straight-faced response: ?There
    are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms.? (To be exact, there are 26^3 =
    17,576.) There is probably some karmic justice in the fact that Paul Boutin
    subsequently became a journalist.

	

	TLA

   Three-Letter Acronym