“Alphabet soup” refers to communication cluttered with acronyms, especially prevalent in military-related communications. It can also refer to a soup with noodles shaped like letters. Clarity is essential in public communications.
People use the term “alphabet soup” to describe a speech, document, or other communication that is so cluttered with acronyms that it’s hard to understand. Alphabet soup is an especially prevalent problem in military-related communications, since the military is extraordinarily fond of using acronyms and alphabets. To someone unfamiliar with the topic under discussion, alphabet soup may seem like a complete misunderstanding.
This slang term refers to the food product of the same name. In the food sense, alphabet soup is a soup that includes noodles shaped like letters of the alphabet. A bowl of alphabet soup includes a large assortment of letters mixed together, and sometimes the letters come together and form words. Seen at a glance, a written document can sometimes look like a bowl of alphabet soup, with acronyms scattered all over the place and no clear definitions for the terms used in the document.
Different types of shorthand can appear in alphabet soup. Acronyms are words formed by putting together the first letters or initial sounds of a group of words, as in “Gestapo” for “Geheime Staatspolizei” or “laser” for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. You may also see acronyms, also known as literacy, special types of acronym that are not designed to be read as words, but rather as individual letters, such as “EU” for “European Union”. Alphabet soup can also include industry- or reader-specific slang and shorthand, which can add further confusion to the situation.
In private communications, alphabet soup may be perfectly acceptable. It is usually safe to assume, for example, that a memorandum from one military member to another might include military jargon because both parties will understand what is being said. In fact, the use of jargon can also preserve the privacy of that communication by making it difficult for people outside your inner circle to understand what is being said.
Public communications, however, shouldn’t be turned into alphabet soup. Even when acronyms and acronyms are clearly spelled out so that people understand what is being referred to, a flood of them can be very intimidating and readers or listeners may begin to ignore rather than focus on the material. Clarity and ease of understanding are essential when preparing printed materials or speeches for public distribution, especially when discussing serious matters. For example, instead of saying “CIA, FBI, NSA, and DSS are working together on this project,” it might be easier to stick to “US intelligence agencies are cooperating on this project.”
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