Acronyms and Acrostics

It seems that in every organization I work they claim to have more acronyms than any other organization. Actually, they all seem to have equally large numbers of them. We even have them in our own small organization. Acronyms are a series of letters used as an abbreviated form of a longer phrase. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance), and LSU (Louisiana State University) are three examples.

You have likely thought of many examples as you read the above paragraph.

The value of acronyms is that they create a short hand and help us speak more rapidly. The danger is that communicating with people who don't know them can cause major and immediate communication blocks.

I've done an exercise in the workshops where I have people define a number of "common" acronyms. Perhaps the most interesting thing that happens is that many of the acronyms have two different yet equally valid meanings! Talk about communication gaps.

Acrostics are something entirely different. An acrostic is defined as: "An acrostic . . . is a poem or other writing in an alphabetic script in which the first letter, syllable or word of each verse, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message. . . . an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aide memory retrieval." (Thanks Wikipedia.)

Acrostics then are much more powerful than acronyms, because in their order they create meaning and improve the chances we will remember that meaning. I often try to create these in my writing. Yesterday, when discussing a recent article I wrote in Unleash Your Potential, titled, Be a Better Listener With These Great Questions, someone immediately identified a powerful acrostic.

The content at a high level was written as:

Reasons Great Listeners Ask Questions

There are specific purposes for the questions asked when trying to listen more successfully. They fall into four basic categories:

- Questions to confirm understanding
- Questions to learn more
- Questions to understand meaning or feelings
- Questions to encourage and show support

And the acrostic is - Use a CLUE to formulate great questions

Confirm understanding
Learn more
Understanding meaning or feelings
Encourage and show support


See the power of this tool?

(Here's the full article.)

I encourage you to look for ways to creatively see more acrostics, and perhaps fewer acronyms. The effectiveness of your communication will be greatly improved.

Labels: accelerated learning, acronyms, acrostics

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati