Our Official Email Abbreviations

In our official mails, nowadays we have a habit of using the abbreviations like FYI, FYIP, PFA or EOD in body of mail and NNTO or EOM in a subject line etc. Most of us when sending such mails assume that the person reading it is aware of these abbreviations. It need not be the case.

One of the person near my desk in office asked me “I am getting a lot of mails from the others with PFA in the top of the mail. Do you know what that means?” I told him it means “Please Find Attached”.

The idea of communication is to make the other person understand what you are thinking/saying and if that very purpose is not meet then why use it. Something that is common/known to you might not be known to the others, so there can be abbreviations which only a certain set of people are aware of. Even worse it can mean something very different in another country or culture. But if you have the habit of using it often then it is better to expand it in the first mail to a new person and then use the abbreviation in the subsequent mails. A much better suggestion is to refrain from using uncommon abbreviations in business emails.

P.S: FYI - For Your Information, FYIP - For Your Information Please.

This reminds me of another incident at the client place, other than India. I referred to the number 100,000 as 1 Lakh while speaking to them. The client did not understand it and I repeating it did not serve any purpose. Then finally I had to say it as one hundred thousand. Until then, I did not realize that the term lakh is predominantly used only in Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan.

Even i faced same kind of experience with one of the mail with no body(message) but subject as:
Please send your details soon <>

By the time i received this mail, i was aware of the only term EOD (End Of Day). Can u expect what assumption i have made for the term <> in subject line to be ?- as End of Month ... instead of End of Mail. lol

And about other abbreviations:
NNTO - No Need To Open
NNTOM - No Need To Open Mail
these are place in subject line only.