FLAB

A FLAB is an abbreviation using four letters. It is an abbreviation of Four Letter ABbreviation. It extends the self-referential humour of the TLA (Three Letter Acronym). It is sometimes referred to as an ETLA (Extended Three Letter Acronym)

Description

In a world where every possible Three Letter Acronym has been registered as a .com, and almost every pronounceable one has many usages, there is lot more scope for a unique name and greater readability with four letters. Using only upper-case English letters, there are 26⁴ = 456,976 possible four-letter abbreviations. If numbers, special characters, or case-sensitivity are allowed, many more FLABs are available.

FLABs are commonly used as codes within computer file formats and computer protocols where a compromise needs to be found between human readability and a fixed format. Many file formats such as TIFF and PNG use four-letter codes to identify the type of chunks. The developers of the Apple Macintosh operating system used four-letter abbreviations as type codes and creator codes. The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) introduced the idea of using four-letter abbeviations as codes for commands (e.g. HELO, QUIT).

In some of these contexts, the FLAB is called a FourCC (an abbreviation of Four Character Code) or OSType.

Body Fat

Flab is also a colloquial name for body fat. This term is thought to have been originally used during the widespread distribution of the flu jab vaccine. Inexperienced nurses often pinched the skin to allow for easy insertion of the needle during vaccinations. As a result, large areas of adipose tissue have become known as FLAB (FLu + jAB).

ee also

* Three Letter Acronym
* List of acronyms and initialisms
* List of computing and IT abbreviations
* Four-character idiom