I wondered how long it might take.

Once the kids started all that shorthand nonsense online (OMG, will it ever end?), I knew it was just a matter of time before my best friends forever, i.e., BFF, at Banker & Tradesman would subconsciously begin to feel the need to be cool.

There it was, on the front page of B&T a few weeks ago, a rather elaborate headline that explained how MLSs were now embracing RPRs – and how MLS PIN would be living with NAR. LOL.

There’s something to be said for abbreviations in headlines; headlines by their nature are mere enticements, not elaborate explanations of the intricacies of those RPRs. But if business journalism truly embraces the initial experiment in initials, the result will be an exhausting trip through the printed word.

What if the ECGD wanted to talk about export credit guarantees with the ECOWAS, because the West African states had some concerns about the role of the LAFTA in influencing U.S. policy on Latin American free trade? “ECGD Calms ECOWAS Over Role of LAFTA.” Makes sense to me.

That’s the trouble, you see. Headlines that use too many abbreviations, initials and jargon assume you know quite a bit about the story, already. That’s fine if you’re Cohen the Columnist, but what if you’re a mere mortal? Those of you who write that I’m “6Y,” which is to say, sexy, are sophisticated enough to put up with a bit of abbreviation/initials fever.

ABCs Are A-OK

On that same front page that went on a bit about MLSs, there was another story featuring a headline about TARP. Now, that’s an initial/abbreviation thing that is perfectly alright to use, because it has been in common use for some time and everyone knows that it stands for, “Tax Assisted Rescue Pornography.”

Accountants have long been comfortable with using initial-style shorthand, such as NTA, for net tangible assets, because by the time the numbers guys are through explaining your current assets and your intangible assets and your current liabilities, divided by goodwill, you really wish you’d just nodded when they said, “NTA.”

You really want the initials to be used with restraint, so that you can maintain the illusion that you are all-knowing, even in the face of the OECD, which used to be the OEEC, which is now called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, despite the fact that it used to be called the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. Business guys have to come across as pretty-near perfect, even in the face of a blizzard of initials – as Ted Turner used to say, “If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.” Then, he came up with CNN. More initials.

Some publications are sensitive to the problem. The Financial Times rarely writes stories about the banking lobby group in Great Britain, the Institute of International Finance, because if you put “IIF” in a small headline, the guys who forgot their reading glasses will be squinting at FFI or FIF or III – and the regulators will pull something over on the banks, without anyone actually knowing.

In fact, trade associations versus regulators tend to prompt the most confusing headlines, filled as they are with the inevitable blizzard of initials. Whenever the government regulators want to squabble with the cable television folks, you just know you’re going to see one of those “FCC Bickers With NCTA,” which is what the National Cable and Telecommunications Association is called when you’re tired at the end of the day.

Scott Van Voorhis, a Banker & Tradesman columnist who appears occasionally when I relent and volunteer some space, had a piece this year about hostility to residential development in the snobby suburbs. The headline referred to NIMBY-ism, which is probably okay for a B&T readership, familiar as they are with the Golden Rule: “Never Interfere, Mr. Banker. Yikes!”

Even as we speak, I’m following up on a squabble involving the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Humane Society of the United States, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, and the New England Brown Egg Council. You know how it goes: “NEBEC Fights Off Criticism From HSUS, MSPCA, As MDAR Mediates.” Got it?