History and Origins
The exact phrase three-letter acronym appeared in the literature in 1975. Three-letter acronyms were used as mnemonics in biological sciences, and their practical advantage was promoted by Weber in 1982. They are used in many other fields, but the term TLA is particularly associated with computing. The specific generation of three-letter acronyms in computing was mentioned in a JPL report of 1982.
In 1980, the manual for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer used and explained TLA. In 1988, in a paper titled "On the cruelty of really teaching computer science", eminent computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra wrote "Because no endeavour is respectable these days without a TLA ..." By 1992 it was in a Microsoft handbook.
Use of "TLA" spread through both industry and academia, and it has now become a generally understood initialism.
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