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I am looking for an abbreviation for an event that is expected to occur in the future, but has yet to occur. Similar to TBD for to be determined and TBA for to be announced.

My events are a series of checkpoints and reviews that will occur in the life cycle of a product design at my company.

I am looking for an abbreviation to put into the date field before the actual checkpoint occurs.

UPDATE

To clarify, the term I am looking for is for something that will definitively happen. There is a chart that says things like : Initial review - (date), Secondary review - (date), etc. It is not an event that people will need to know in advance, but more of a this happened on this date kind of thing. I just want something to put in the date field instead of leaving it empty to indicate that it is not yet completed.

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  • Some mistake, surely. TBD is to be decided, but I've never come across TBT.
    – FumbleFingers
    Mar 4, 2013 at 21:54
  • @FumbleFingers Sorry, a typo on my part.
    – Matt Rockwell
    Mar 4, 2013 at 21:57
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    In my experience, TBA is vastly more common than TBD. Why don't you want to use it for your context? If it's something to do with the fact that at the present moment it would be meaningless to have an actual date, you might consider N/A (not applicable/available).
    – FumbleFingers
    Mar 4, 2013 at 22:01
  • N/A could be interpreted as this step is not needed (applicable).
    – mhoran_psprep
    Mar 5, 2013 at 0:21
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    Just to be clear, I understand your question to be "What placeholder abbreviation is appropriate for the date of a future event when the actual date is undetermined?" Is this what you are asking?
    – Canis Lupus
    Mar 5, 2013 at 0:58

3 Answers 3

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You may also see TBC - To Be Confirmed. This can be applied to several details (e.g., date, venue, lineup etc.)

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  • This is looking like the best option currently.
    – Matt Rockwell
    Mar 5, 2013 at 13:00
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If the event is supposed to take place:

  • and you know the date, but aren't ready to announce it, use TBA.
  • but the date isn’t known because it will take place only based on other events being completed, use TBD.
  • and you know the date and can announce it, put the date.
  • and only a relative date is known, use 2 weeks after Event X.
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An interesting Ngram in American English...

TBA and TBD

British English shows TBA ahead the whole time.

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    Maybe TBD made temporary headway because some people started using it for To Be Done in "public" contexts. I've always used it that way myself in comments to software code, but I think it looks a bit too casual for most other contexts. Perhaps a lot of managers in a lot of companies started telling their staff to use the more "formal" TBA in the early 90s.
    – FumbleFingers
    Mar 4, 2013 at 23:02
  • TBD is a standard abbreviation in U.S. sports journalism—for instance, at the end of a sports league's regular season, when a higher-seeded team has a first-round bye but its opponent in the second round will be the winner of a first-round match; or when a team's scheduled opponent has canceled and no new opponent has yet been found to fill that hole in the schedule. The standard wording in the league's schedule listings for either of these situations is, for example, "St. Charles East vs. TBD."
    – Sven Yargs
    Mar 5, 2013 at 5:49
  • Great info but I think you are missing the point of the question. It is not whether to use TBA or TBD, I will be using neither because neither of them fit this case. They were purely examples.
    – Matt Rockwell
    Mar 5, 2013 at 13:02

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