Why are so many acronyms composed of three letters?

satguru

It's not a deliberate plot, but if you do choose a name for ease of memory and pronunciation, four letters are harder to get either a pronouncable set of letters from and if not, for people to remember. Two letters run out of combinations too easily so are not used so much as it is too easy to duplicate and also make very few words or sounds. Finally you have some made up of the company's directors, so is just a row of letters like BBDO or KPMG, and then from time to time they change when the staff turn over. So necessity lends itself more easily to three letters, though many longer exist, some by judgement and some maybe by pure chance. Jul 17 06, 6:14 PM

What-A-Mess

It is a TLA. That is why. Jul 17 06, 9:25 PM

BungeeAZ

Probably because of the stock market identifications, 3 charracters are good, any more is too many, although they are accepted. SCUBA is a 5 letter acronym for "self contained underwater breathing apparatus" SNAFU is a 5 letter acronym for "situation normal all 'fouled' up." WYSIWYG is an old 7 letter acronym for "What you see is what you get." Jul 17 06, 10:18 PM

zbeckabee

Though far from complete, the following list clearly shows that there are also many acronyms composed of more than three letters. http://www.astroinfo.org/yp/acronym.html Jul 18 06, 7:57 PM