Clipping word formation examples

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Language changes and evolves both subtly and quite obviously; one of the more obvious ways is through clipping, where shorter words are cut out of longer words.

Believe me, you don’t become a language translation professional by chance. While some students and young adults might drift into a field through inertia or because of a family legacy – or simply having no idea what to do with their lives and needing a job – those of us in translation services are here because of one primary reason: We have a love for language. From a young age we were fascinated by the way people could communicate just by making different noises with their mouths and throats, and how the same noises, arranged in different ways, formed wholly different languages.

That also means we’re all familiar with the basic ideas of language studies, whether we’re experts in the field or just interested amateurs who use our off-hours to read about language and how it’s formed. This means we’re all either the best person to wind up sitting next to at a dinner party, or the worst, depending on your own interests. Recently, for example, I’ve been reading about the fascinating process of Clipping in language evolution.

The Clipped Word

What is “clipping”? It’s actually something you’re likely very familiar with. It’s the simple process of forming a new word by clipping off part of an existing word. An easy example is the word exam, which of course comes from the longer word examination. The letters “ination” have simply been clipped off, forming a new word that shares the definition and context of the older word.

Clipping is, of course, a reductive process that shortens words and thus shortens the effort involved in speech and writing, albeit by a tiny increment. However, you can imagine how this process can slowly reduce the time spent expressing thoughts, paring language down to shorter and shorter words. Anyone who has read Shakespeare might see how language has sped up and become much faster and more clipped over the centuries.

Clipping also reduces formality. Examination is a word that would be used by a teacher or in official language on a school’s policy page, while exam is the word all the students would use.

Types of Clipping

1. Clipping comes in four basic varieties:
2. Back Clipping: As we’ve seen in exam and examination, back clipping is when the back half of a word is deleted. Another example is memo, the back-clipped form of memorandum.
3. Fore Clipping: The process can be reversed, deleting the beginning of a word, as in varsity, which is a fore-clipped (and slightly mutated) version of university.
4. Mid Clipping: More rare is when the beginning and end of a word is clipped to form a new word. A good example is flu, clipped out of influenza.
5. Compound Clipping: Much rarer, this involves clipping more than one word to form a new word. The best example I can think of is cablegram, taken from the phrase cable telegram.

If you found this fascinating, you might have a future as a translator!

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Have you ever wondered how new words are created in English? Today you will be learning about one way of doing that!

This topic is about neologism, which refers to the coining of a new word. Lots of neologisms are commonly used and recognised in the English language. Today, we will be focusing on clipping. We will explain what clipping means, and give some examples. We will also look at why we clip words and the differences between clipping and abbreviations. As you read through the following article, consider how many clipped words you already know!

Fig. 1 — New words are added to the dictionary.

Before we dive in, let’s begin by looking at how new words are made.

What are different types of neologisms?

There are lots of different ways to create new words. Here are some of them:

1. Derivation — adding prefixes or suffixes to existing words.

2. Back-formation — the opposite of derivation; removing a prefix or suffix from an existing word.

3. Compounding — two existing words that are either hyphenated or formed into one word.

4. Repurposing — taking a word from one context and putting it into another.

5. Conversion — taking a word that is in a particular word class and using it as another word class.

6. Eponyms — words that are named after places or people.

7. Loanwords — words that are borrowed from other languages.

8. Onomatopoeia — words that are created by imitating a sound.

9. Reduplication — words or sounds in words that are repeated (either fully or partially).

10. Occasionalism — words that are invented for a particular occasion for which there is no existing word.

11. Error — words that are created as a result of misspellings or mispronunciations.

12. Blends — taking parts of two different words and putting them together to form a single word.

13. Abbreviations — shortening longer words.

And finally, the focus of this article: Clipping (also known as truncation).

What is clipping?

In the English language, clipping refers to shortening an existing word. This is done by removing part of a longer word, usually by cutting it down to a single syllable, to make a new word.

Imagine a hairdresser takes clippers to a person’s hair and cuts some off to shorten it. Clipping is like that, just with words!

Fig. 2 — Clipping words is like clipping hair; both the words and the hair get shorter!

It is important to note that, unlike some other ways of forming new words, clipping a word does not change its meaning.

What are the different types of clipping?

There are two main types of clipping. These are:

Initial clipping (also known as apheresis) which refers to removing the first syllable(s) to create a clipped word.

Final clipping (also known as apocope) which refers to removing the last syllable(s) to create a clipped word.

What are some examples of clipping?

Below are some examples of clipped words, along with the words they came from:

Clipping can also be done with names, for example:

Why do we clip words?

We clip words for a variety of reasons, some of which are discussed below:

Change formality of spoken language

Most clipped words are more informal than the longer existing words, so they are often used in more casual conversations, usually among familiar people. For example:

In a conversation between siblings, they may refer to each other as ‘bro’ or ‘sis’, which are the clipped versions of ‘brother’ and ‘sister’. However, if they were to introduce each other to someone unfamiliar, they would probably say, ‘This is my brother/sister.’

Change formality of written language

As well as being used in informal speech, they are also used in informal writing. For example:

You could text a friend, ‘I just finished my English exam.’ This would be more casual than ‘I just finished my English examination.’ The word ‘examination’ would usually be reserved for more formal writing, such as official documents in institutions.

Simplicity and efficiency

This may be quite a simple reason, but it is true! Clipped words are easier to pronounce and quicker to say, leading to more efficient conversations that are easier to understand and convey a point faster. They are also easier to spell and faster to write, leading to faster-written communication and responses.

How does clipping differ from abbreviations?

Although both clipping and abbreviations create words that are shorter than the original words, there are a couple of differences between them. Let’s begin by exploring the definition of abbreviation:

Abbreviation

The abbreviation refers to the shortening of the length of a word. For example, Doctor can be shortened to Dr., and Junior can be shortened to Jr. These shortened words are mainly used in written language, and not spoken language. For example, when writing ‘Dr.’ or ‘Jr.’, you would still pronounce them as ‘Doctor’ and ‘Junior’ in speech. Some abbreviations end with full stops, but they are not always needed.

There are also other types of abbreviations, such as:

• Acronyms — The initial letters of different words or phrases are taken to form a word that is pronounced as a single unit; e.g. UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) or PIN (Personal Identification Number).

• Initialisms — The initial letters of different words or phrases are taken to form initials that are pronounced individually; e.g. IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) or USB (Universal Serial Bus).

• Contractions — Some letters or sounds are omitted from words, usually shown with an apostrophe; e.g. cannot → can’t, have not → haven’t.

On the other hand, clipping is the removal of part of an existing word to create a new, shorter word with the same meaning. It is used in both written and spoken language; the written form does not differ from the spoken form.

Can you think of any examples of clipping that have not been previously mentioned?