Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, mine has been fairly quiet, work has been slowing down a bit recently but I’ve got a couple more shifts booked for this week so hopefully they are busier (on the upside, slow days at work means getting a bit of reading in!).
Anyway, as it’s Tuesday, I have another Top Ten Tuesday from you all courtesy of Jana At That Artsy Reader Girl. Now this week’s topic didn’t quite work for me as I’ve not really read any Book Titles That Are Questions so I decided to twist the topic a little and instead do Unnecessary Title Abbreviations Used On Book Twitter. If you are on Book Twitter, you’re probably familiar with the endless abbreviations used for book titles that seem like gibberish to anyone who doesn’t know what they mean. Some of these titles make sense to abbreviate because they are super long (like A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder for instance), but some are fairly short titles that could quite easily be typed out in full. Honestly I kind of hate title abbreviations and would rather use a shortened version of the full title (like Gentleman’s Guide for The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice and Virtue) because I think it looks better, but to each their own. Anyway, on with the unnecessary title abbreviations:
- SoC-Six of Crows-Leigh Bardugo
It’s three words. They’re super short words. It’s one of the most popular books on Book Twitter, so I do get that most people probably think that everyone knows what you’re talking about (and most probably do) but there’s really no reason to abbreviate this title, it’s not going to take up many characters!
2. ToG-Throne of Glass-Sarah J Maas
AGAIN, IT’S THREE WORDS. I understand abbreviating the A Court of Thorns and Roses series titles because they’re that bit longer but the Throne of Glass series is all three word titles, and whilst it’s not a problem for this particular title (I can’t instantly think of any other titles with the same acronym that have the same degree of notoriety as Throne of Glass), there are other titles in the series that share that same title as other books. Queen of Shadows for instance, there are several other books that share the same title and there are several other books in the series that have the same acronym as books by different authors. So I think it would save confusion if people just referred to these books by their full names!
3. TBS-The Bone Season-Samantha Shannon
All the books in these series have pretty short titles and whilst they are fairly popular, I don’t know if they’re so popular that you’d look at the acronym and instantly know, yep that’s The Bone Season. I can understand abbreviating the title of Shannon’s standalone, The Priory of The Orange Tree (TPOTOT), though like I said above, I tend to prefer to just shorten the title to something simpler, like plain “Priory”.
4. THG-The Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins
Okay, so I imagine most people probably know that THG stands for The Hunger Games, it’s fairly self-explanatory, but why not just use the full title? It’s only three words, it’s not going to take up much space in your tweet!
5. GOT-Game of Thrones-George RR Martin
I understand the series title being abbreviated, A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) is a bit of a mouthful, but Game of Thrones is comparatively simple. I imagine most people will recognise what GOT stands for in conversation because it is a fantasy phenomenon and popular outside of book circles thanks to the TV series, but unlike most book acronyms, got is actually a word, so that could be confusing if you’re not a fantasy fan!
6. S&B or SAB (I’ve seen both used)-Shadow and Bone-Leigh Bardugo
Again it’s three words, it’s not that hard to use the full title. I really don’t think any of Leigh Bardugo’s titles are long enough to be abbreviated, she tends to go for fairly short titles. SAB is a fairly popular acronym as well, it could be the TV show, Switched At Birth, there are various scientific abbreviations that also use SAB, so I think in this case being specific is helpful!
7. TRB-The Raven Boys-Maggie Stiefvater
All the books in this series get abbreviated when talked about on Book Twitter, but they all have super short titles! I can definitely see situations where it could be really easy to mix up TRB and TBR, if you’re typing in hurry, so that could quite easily be confused. TRB is also used for a lot of technical acronyms so that could also be confusing.
8. TPW-The Poppy War-RF Kuang
I can speak myself to the confusion I felt with this one, over the past year, I saw TPW floating around Twitter a lot and could not work out what it was at all, until I finally found out it was The Poppy War. The Poppy War is such a short title that I think shortening it honestly creates more confusion than it solves? Just go with the full guys!
9. TGW-The Gilded Wolves-Roshani Chokshi
Again, it’s a fairly short title so abbreviating it seems kind of redundant, and though it’s a popular book, I don’t know that it’s so popular that people will know what it is instantly by the acronym. It’s also an acronym for the TV show The Good Wife, which I reckon is probably more well known so that could be confusing!
10. TCP-The Cruel Prince-Holly Black
It seems fairly redundant for The Cruel Prince to be shortened, and there are a million and one other things that it could be because TCP is a fairly common abbreviation (there are around 100 different options if you search TCP acronym) so specificity probably wouldn’t hurt here.
So there you go, some of the Book Twitter abbreviations that I feel are unnecessary. How about you? Any Book Twitter acronyms that you don’t understand? Do you like using abbreviations for book titles? Let me know in the comments!
Next week’s topic is Books I Read In One Sitting, I’m going to tweak it slightly to Books That Took Me Under Two Weeks To Read as I’m not a massively fast reader and two weeks seems to be my average.
bookloversblog 
These are always so confusing to me! It always takes me a minute to figure out which book people are talking about.
Same! If I’ve read the book I do usually get it, but even then sometimes if books have the same initials, it can be a bit confusing!
I did not even know this was a thing! Thank you for sharing. I have seen some weird initial things, so at least now I know why they are used, but I imagine I will not be able to figure out what book they are talking about!
No problem!
It’s a case of IYKYK! 😂 I don’t mind the abbreviations as long as the title has first been written out. Otherwise it excludes people from the conversation. Nice twist on the topic!
Thanks! Yes, I definitely think the full title should be established first too so as not to exclude anyone from the conversation.
I’m not on Book Twitter, but I have seen book abbreviations used fairly frequently on blogs. I use TKAM (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) often myself. Three word titles, though? I don’t think abbreviations make sense for titles that short!
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
I’m not on Twitter, but I have seen similar abbreviations on Facebook. It’s left me a little confused at times, as I don’t want to feel dumb for not knowing what the book is. I figure if I don’t know the abbreviation, I don’t need to read the book. I also see it as the person discussing the book as too lazy to state the book’s title, especially on Facebook when they don’t have a limit on characters.
Here’s my post: https://readbakecreate.com/?p=483
Oh I didn’t realise there were Book Facebook groups! Yeah it does leave people out of the loop, I feel like you should at least write the title out in full at least once first before switching to abbreviations to ensure that everyone knows what you’re talking about.
You are right. It’s silly to shorten such already-short titles!
It really is!
I’m the same! I don’t really understand the need to shorten these titles. Plus I never know what the abbreviations stand for the majority of the time.
Yes, it would be one thing if everyone knew the abbreviations but they don’t!
Fun topic! I don’t mind when I know the abbreviations, but sometimes I feel out of the loop when I can’t figure out what everyone’s referring to! There should be a newsletter! 😅
There really should! “Beginners Guide To Book Twitter Abbreviations 101”.
Fantastic subject. I agree, they all seem pretty confusing. The only one I would recognize is GoT because it’s used everywhere. But I wouldn’t even know THG and I’ve read it. LOL
Thanks for visiting my TTT earlier.
Thanks! Yes, GoT is pretty widely used so that was more for the fact that it was short than people wouldn’t understand it. Yeah it’s not one you’d instantly recognise and I can think of at least one other book title with those initials, The Hating Game.
Of course. I guess many people would recognize it. As to THG, there is also a lot of hate in The Hunger Games. LOL
Ha ha true!
I agree. All of these abbreviations are totally unnecessary.
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-book-titles-that-are-questions/
They really are!
This is an interesting twist on the prompt! It’s interesting also how instantly I knew so many of them 😅
Thank you! Ha ha if you spend a lot of time around Book Twitter, you do tend to pick them up quickly!
Yes! So many of them seem so unnecessary! Super long titles… I get it. But otherwise, just type it out. Gah!
Yes, if it’s not five words or above, I think you can pretty safely type it out!
I agree especially about all these three word abbreviations! Although ASoIaF always kinda irritates me too haha event though it’s longer., I don’t know why!
It annoys me too, it’s just a very ugly looking abbreviation I think!
LOL! I had never thought about this before but you’re right. These are all so short there’s no reason to abbreviate.
Yes. exactly! I think five words or above is fine to abbreviate, maybe four words if they’re long, but any less than that makes little sense to me.
Well, I do get why people started abbreviating them when Twitter only allowed 140 characters. With that few characters to work with, saving even a few is worthwhile. Now that tweets can be longer, it’s not as necessary to abbreviate. I do find it confusing when I come across an abbreviation I don’t know, especially when Googling brings up lots of other stuff, but not a book title. I’m not up on all of the Stiefvater abbreviations, for instance, so unless I know the person is talking about Stiefvater’s books, I’m lost.
Yes, when tweets were shorter, it was definitely more necessary but now we have 280 characters to work with, we can definitely fit a full three word title into a tweet. Ha ha yes, I googled a lot of these abbreviations whilst doing this post to see what came up and none of the results were book titles! I think we should really only abbreviate once we’ve already established the full title of a book, that way you can be sure that everyone knows what you’re talking about!
OMG yes, I’m often so confused when I see these abbreviations on social media. I get intrigued by a post but I have no idea what book they’re talking about and then I have to scroll the comments and just hope someone actually writes it in full. It’s frustrating and indeed, especially when they’re actually really short titles!
I can relate! I do get most of the abbreviations, but there are some where I’m like “What?”. And it cuts people out of the conversation even if they’ve read/heard of the book because they might not get the acronyms. I feel like you should at least write the full title once in your tweets so that people understand what you’re talking about. And yes, acronyms for short titles are not necessary.
I just realized how many of these I’d seen and just skipped over because I had no clue what they’re talking about
Exactly! It cuts so many people out of the conversation using acronyms that not everyone understands 🙂