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I remember an episode of "Politeness Man" in the National Lampoon that
explored this very topic. Politenessman Felt that highway signs were terse
to the point of rudeness, and the final panel showed a stretch of road with
revised signs that delicately pointed out upcoming hazards to the attention
of the drivers. Such signs were, of course, verbose. Those drivers who
slowed down to read them were rear-ended the drivers behind, while the ones
who kept going without reading the entire sign were shown skidding off the
road.
Terseness reduces the time it takes to read something if the terms are all
familiar. When an acronym is universally understood, there's no problem.
If it isn't, you have to balance the time spend teaching it to savings down
the road. If you're only going to use a term once, you should probably
shouldn't bother to introduce its acronym.
Acronyms are routinely overused on page 1 of any document, where Sales and
Marketing go nuts trying to cram ten pounds of copy into a five-pound bag,
and also want to use every buzzword ever invented, for fear of losing a sale
to someone who merely scans the sheet for his favorite buzzword. I think
this is ludicrous, in concept and especially in execution. But the acronyms
are not to blame. The problem is the insistence on listing every
conceivable feature and benefit on page 1, rather than hammering home the
product's actual selling points.
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