This is a post about acronyms and how I don’t like them.

Today I was looking at a report that had a page of charts with the term LOB all over it. LOB is a new acronym for me. So, I did what anyone would do in this case – I Googled it.

According to Acronym Finder, there are 33 different definitions of LOB.

How is this a useful acronym for people to use? I’m still not sure which version the author meant in the original report. Based on context, I think it probably stood for line of business. But who knows, it could stand for Loaf Of Bread or Lazy Old B*stard.

One of my favorite acronym stories comes from my first job. My coworker used to be in the Army and we were working on a government contract, trying to decipher all of the acronyms the organization used. He told me that in the Army, they referred to cars that the soldiers owned themselves as “POVs” or Personally Owned Vehicles. So, yes, instead of calling something a one syllable word like car or truck, it became the three-syllable POV.
Sometimes acronyms can be a bunch of BS, or if you prefer, a Load Of Bull.