NAH (No Abbreviations Here): Use Your Words

From Judge Daniel D. Domenico in Darren Patterson Christian Academy v. Roy (D. Colo. Feb. 24, 2025):

Last academic year Colorado implemented its new Universal Pre-school Program (the parties tend to refer to this as the "UPK" Program, but I try to use my words and will call it the "Program" or "Universal Preschool") ….

Comments

[Martinned2]

*programme

[David Nieporent]

We don't speak metric in this country.

[John F. Carr]

On the merits, the court applied Fulton v. Philadelphia. Allowing discretionary exemptions to an antidiscrimination law opens the door to religious exemptions.

[Ska]

I dig the sentiment. We use so much of our clients' acronyms and jargon, then our industry's acronyms and jargon, and then our firm's acronyms and jargon. Some people in firm leadership take a strange sort of pride in creating ever more inane idioms and corresponding acronyms. Enough already. How about communicating in a way that shows you appreciate language and value expressing your ideas clearly?

[David Nieporent]

Agreed. Only established, well-known acronyms (e.g. "IRS," "CIA," "NFL") should appear in a brief, barring extenuating circumstances (hereinafter "ECs.")

[Rossami]

At risk of being pedantic, none of the "acronyms" in your list are actually acronyms - those are all initialisms since they are pronounced as the individual letters. "NASA", by contrast, would be an acronym.

And yes, only very well established and exceedingly well-known acronyms, initialisms and/or abbreviations should ever be used in a brief without ECs.

[David Nieporent]

At risk of being pedantic, none of the "acronyms" in your list are actually acronyms - those are all initialisms since they are pronounced as the individual letters. "NASA", by contrast, would be an acronym.

That is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Please.

That is the kind of nonsense up with which I will shall not put.

[Life of Brian]

In lawyer-land (and particularly back when David was cutting his teeth), the general rule of thumb is that "shall" connotes an obligation, while "will" just anticipates a future act. Probably just reflexively keeping his options open.

[Drewski]

At the risk of being more pedantic, that's false. Some language activists tried to make that case a few decades ago but it never caught on. Acronyms need not be pronounced as words.

[JonFrum]

I studied genetics, and it made perfectly good sense to squeeze down 'deoxyribonucleic acid' to DNA in both literature and speech. Then, I started reading the published literature on my own pathology of stuttering. Have you ever heard of 'person first' language? They had replaced 'stutterer' with 'person who stutters.' As bad as that euphimism was they then went on to acronymize it as 'PWS.' And children? 'CWS.' Now, 'people who stutter' is not 'deoxyribonucleic acid.' But these Nimrods wanted to imagine they were doing something particularly technical when referring to .... stutterers.