OMG, Acronyms Rule!
Posted on Mon, Feb 13, 2012
By Jennifer Keenan, Production Director
In today’s tech savvy world, many of you know that acronyms are “it” when it comes to texting—especially since we are limited on characters per text message.
I consider myself the Wilma Flintstone of the 21st century, since my husband and I MUST be the last household on the planet that has no cable or access to the internet. I know it’s hard to believe, but it is true!
You may ask yourself what does this have to do with the direct mail industry? Well, since I just recently upgraded to the iPhone 4s and have become addicted to texting, I have encountered quite a few acronyms that I never knew about.
This made me think about the oodles of USPS & direct mail acronyms floating around. My husband always says that when he hears me talk shop it is like listening to a foreign language. So I wanted to share some commonly used acronyms that you may have heard but never knew what they were.
AA: Author’s Alteration – Corrections made by the author on proofs that alter the original copy or artwork provided to the supplier.
BMEU: Bulk Mail Entry Unit – The area of a postal facility where mailers present bulk, presorted, and permit imprint mail for acceptance.
CASS: Coding Accuracy Support System – A service offered by the USPS that improves the accuracy & quality of an address matching the correct destination of the mail piece.
DPI: Dots per Inch – A measure of resolution of a screen image on a printed page.
ECR: Enhanced Carrier Route - Mail that is sorted by carrier route to qualify for discount postage rates.
FPO: For Position Only – Commonly used when denoting laser copy versus pre-printed copy. Or, a low resolution image positioned in a native art file to be replaced later with a higher resolution version of the same image.
FIM: Facing Identification Mark – A series of five or six vertical bars used by automated postal equipment to identify, orient, and separate reply mail and mail produced by PC postage systems and meters.
GPO: General Post Office or Government Printing Office (this was a two for one!)
IMb: Intelligent Mail barcode – The next generation of USPSbarcode technology used to sort and track letters and flats. Intelligent Mail barcode technology, among other things, combines the capabilities of the POSTNET barcode and the Planet Code barcode into one unique barcode.
K: Black – Printer’s terminology for Black Ink.
Lc: lower case – Self-explanatory right?
MERLIN: Mail Evaluation Readability Lookup Instrument – No, not a magician. This is a tool that is used by the USPS to assist with the acceptance of business mail.
NCOA: National Change of Address - A comprehensive program that aids mailers in identifying address changes before mail enters the mail stream.
OCR: Optical Character Reader – An automated mail sorting machine that interprets the address information on a mail piece and sprays the corresponding ZIP Code information on the piece as a barcode.
POSTNET: Postal Numeric Encoding Technique – The barcode system used on mail pieces for encoding the delivery point information and the ZIP+4 code information.
PMS: Pantone Matching System – A universal color chart that have preprinted color swatches of blended inks
QC: Quality Control – A program of activities with the objective of eliminating errors and ensuring standards are being met.
RTS: Return to Sender - USPS has deemed the package as undeliverable and the package is being returned to the sender.
SCF: Sectional Center Facility – A postal facility that serves as the processing and distribution center for post offices in a designated geographic area as defined by the first three digits of the ZIP Codes of those offices.
USPS: United States Postal Service – Everyone knew this one, right?
VER: Voluntary Early Retirement – Of course the USPS would come up with an acronym for this. Not to mention…I think this is happening a lot in the USPS these days, do you agree?
XML: eXtensible Markup Language – A language that allows designers and programmers to create tags that can do almost anything they want. It was created so that richly structured documents could be used over the Web.
YTD: Year to Date – I am starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
ZIP Code: Zone Improvement Program code – A system of 5-digit codes that identifies the individual post office or metropolitan area delivery station associated with an address.
My challenge to you is to share commonly used acronyms that I have missed above or keep the “Wilma Flintstone of the 21st century” up to date with the latest and greatest text acronyms.
