[jabbawookiees]

Well you could have a negotiation like so:

Recruiter: The offer is $100k.

Me: I want 120k and WFH.

Recruiter: I checked with the manager. The best we can do is either 120k but you show up every day or 90k remote.

Me: I'm already paid 110k and work remote. Sorry.

Recruiter: Oh, alright. We can't afford that. We'll continue our search with other candidates. Thanks for your time.

Both "options" presented by the recruiter are "alternatives" and they're both "negotiated agreements" (i.e. a meeting in the middle).

BATNA is short for what you get when negotiations fail and you walk away with no deal. (In this case, staying at the 110k remote job is one party's, the other party's is to keep interviewing more candidates.)

I had once had this aversion to neologisms for the sake of them too. Then I took some math classes and understood that saying "ring" is better than saying "commutative group with multiplication satisfying the following axioms...". Ultimately, it's helpful to invoke words that a group of people commonly understands, even if it seems to the uninitiated that it's saying nothing of importance.

The word "BATNA" is used a lot in discussions on negotiations. These books are full of tips on thinking about/finding out your counterpart's BATNA, coming to the negotiation table with a strong BATNA, conveying your BATNA to the other person, etc. In this context, the word/acronym conveys a very specific meaning that unspecialized English words like "option" and "alternative" don't capture.