Is made a short a word

The shortening of words
involves the shortening of both words and word-groups. Distinction
should he made between shortening of a word in written speech
(graphical
abbreviation)
and in the sphere of oral intercourse (lexical
abbreviation).
Lexical abbreviations may be used both in written and in oral speech.
Lexical abbreviation is the process of forming a word out of the
initial elements (letters, morphemes) of a word combination by f
simultaneous operation of shortening and compounding.

This comparatively new way
of word-building has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays,
especially in American English.

Shortenings (or
contracted/curtailed
words/clipping)
are
produced in two different ways.
The first
is to make a new word from a syllable (rarer, two) of the original
word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone
made from
telephone,
fence from
defence),
its ending
(as in hols
from
holidays,
vac from
vacation,
props from
properties,
ad from
advertisement)
or both
the beginning and ending (as in flu
from
influenza,
fridge from
refrigerator):

It was remarkable that the
prisoners were so brain-dulled by their conditions that the onset of
flu symptoms
caused no special reaction at first. (Clancy).

Words that have been
shortened at the end are called apocope
(vet
(veterinary); doc
(doctor);
prof
(professor);
prep
(preparatory);
mayo
(mayonnaise);
polio
(poliomyelitis);
pro
(professional);
hi—fi
(high
fidelity);
hi—tech
(high
technology);
sci—fi
(of
or
pertaining
to
science
fiction);
UA. міськрада,
(міська
рада) мінекономіки (міністерство
економіки), генпрокуратура (генеральна
прокуратура), aдмінресурс
(адміністративний
ресурс);
Мін ‘юст
(Міністерство юстиції);
Мінфін (Мініcmерcmво
фінансів);
держдеп (державний департамент США);
універмаг (універсальний
магазин);
нардеп (народний депутат);
комп
(комп’ютер);
клава
(клавіатура);
універ
(університет);
лаби
(лабораторні
роботи)):

Next he opened the jar of
mayonnaise, and using his finger as a knife, began to slather the
slices of bread with mayo.(King).

“It was a bomb,
essentially, a Molotov cocktail, gas and motor oil” the fire
marshal said. “Not a
pro job,
but a pro
couldn’t
have done it any better” (Sandford).

There must have been
thousands of people with minicams
(minicamera)
at the scene (Clancy).

It had taken him just five
years to turn Tech-Electric,
a failing
electronics firm that he’d bought for a song in 1979,
into a leading
manufacturer of business and personal computer products (Clancy).

Тоді можуть бути
закриті або обмежені коррохунки
українців
в іноземних банках (кореспондентський
рахунок).

Відмова від
євроінтеграції,
навіть
як від стратегічної, бодай і віддаленої
мети…(європейська інтеграція).

Words that have been
shortened at the beginning are called aphaeresis
(phone
(telephone);bus
(omnibus);
copter
(helicopter);
cute
(acute):

One by one the other copters
rogered.
Only Kurtz did not, but he also stayed put (King).

And at the radio station,
the DJ picked up a phone,
said “OK”,
looked through the glass of the broadcast booth at the engineer and
the general manager behind him and nodded (Sandford).

There’s a little girl out
there, about four years old, cute
as devil
(King).

Words in which some
syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle are called
syncope
(ma ‘m —
madam,
specs —
spectacles).
Sometimes
a combination of these types is observed (tec
− detective, frig − refrigerator).

The second way of
shortening
is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group (UNO
[‘ju:neu] from the
United Nations Organisation).
This type
is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal
words, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g.
f. is a
shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.

It is commonly believed that
the preference for shortenings can be explained by their brevity and
is due to the ever-increasing tempo of modern life. Confusion and
ambiguousness are quite natural consequences of the modern
overabundance of shortened words, and initial shortenings are often
especially enigmatic and misleading as the following conversation
between two undergraduates clearly shows:

• Who’s the letter from?

• My g. f.

• Didn’t know you had girl-friends. A nice girl?

• Idiot! It’s from my grandfather!

Here are some more examples
of informal shortenings:

moving-picture → movie

gentleman → gent

spectacles → specs

circumstances → circs

a written acknowledgement of
debt, made from I
owe you →
I. O. Y.

liberty → lib

certainty → cert

metropoly → metrop

exhibition → exhibish

Undergraduates’ informal
speech abounds in words of the type: exam,
lab, prof, vac, hol, co-ed (a
girl student at a coeducational school or college).

The
term abbreviation
may be also used for a shortened form
of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole for
economy of space and effort. Abbreviation is achieved by omission of
letters from one or more parts of the whole:

abbreviation → abbr building → bld government → govt word → wd

dozen → doz/dz limited → ltd Bachelor of Arts → BA New York State → N.Y.

Sometimes
the part or parts retained show some alteration, thus, oz
denotes
ounce
and
Xmas
denotes
Christmas.
Doubling
of initial letters
shows plural forms as for instance pp
for
pages,
ll for
lines
or
cc
for
chapters.
These
are in fact not separate words but only graphic signs or symbols
representing them.

Abbreviations
are often used in Internet communication:

AFAIK − As far as I know; BTW − By the way; DH − Dear husband; DIY − Do it yourself; FYI − For your information; HTH − Hope this helps;

ICBW − I could be wrong; (sometimes it could be worse); ISWYM − I see what you mean; SCNR − Sorry, could not resist; TIA − Thanks in advance; TTFN − Та ta for now; TWIMC − To whom it may concern;

A
specific type of abbreviations having no parallel in Ukrainian is
represented by Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as
Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents:

ad
lib (Lat
ad
libitum) —
at
pleasure;

a.m.
(Lat
ante
meridiem) —
in
the morning

cf.
(Lat
conferre)
—
compare;

cp.
(Lat
comparare)
—
compare;

e.g.
(Lat
exempli
gratia)
—
for
example;

ib(id)
(Lat
ibidem)
—
in
the same place;

i.e.
(Lat
id
est) —
that
is;

loc.cit.
(Lat
locus
citato) —
in
the passage cited;

ob.
(Lat
obiit)
—
he
(she) died;

q.v.
(Lat
quod
vide) —
which
see;

p.m.
(Lat
post
meridiem) —
in
the afternoon;

viz
(Lat
videlicet)
—
namely.

An
interesting feature of present-day English is the use of initial
abbreviations
for famous persons’ names and surnames. Thus, George Bernard
Shaw is often alluded to as G.B.S.
[‘dзi:’bi:’es],
Herbert George Wells as H.G.
The
usage is clear from the following example: “Oh,
yes
…
where
was
I?”
“With
H.G.’s Martians,” I told him (Wyndham).

UA. ЛМ
− Леонід
Макарович);

БАБ
−
Борис
Абрамович Березовський;

ВВП −
Владімір
Владімірович Путін.

Російські
політтехнологи радять своєму президенту
розбавляти офіціоз
гумором і сатирою, тож
ВВП
і
пожартував…
(Україна молода № 2067 29.01.2003)

Journalistic
abbreviations are often occasioned by a desire to economise
head-line space:

the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament → CND.

the
NATO multilateral nuclear force → MLF

CND
Calls Lobby
to Stop MLF
(Daily Worker).

The
Americans claim that, so long as legislation elsewhere falls sport of
their own Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)
of
1977,
they
are at a disadvantage in bidding for international contracts. The
FCPA
outlaws
the payment of bribes by American firms to foreign officials,
political parties, party officials and candidates.(The Economist Feb
28th 2002)

UA.
ПІК “Політика
і культура”;

СІЧ “Слово
і Час”;

УМ “Україна
молода”;

ВВ “Вечерние
вести”;

МК “Московский
комсомолець”;

КП “Комсомольская
правда”.

It
must be emphasised that initial abbreviation, no less than other
types of shortening, retains the valency, i.e. the combining
possibilities of the prototypes. The difference in distribution is
conditioned only by a change of meaning (lexical or more rarely
lexico-grammatical). Abbreviations receive the plural and Possessive
case inflections: G.I.’s,
M.P.’s, P.O.W.’s (from
prisoner
of war), also
the verb paradigm: okays,
okayed, okaying. E.
g. A
hotel’s no life for you… Why don’t you come and P.G. with me?
(A.
Wilson) Here P.G.
is
an abbreviation for paying
guest. Like
all nouns they can be used attributively: BBC
television, TV program, UN vote.

A specifically English word
pattern almost absent in the Ukrainian language must be described in
connection with initial abbreviations in which the first element is a
letter and the second a complete word:

A-bomb − atomic
bomb;

H-bomb − hydrogen
bomb;

x-ray − translation
of German X-Strahl
the name
orig. given to the rays by Roentgen, x
signifying
their unknown nature;

H-hour − the
time, usually unspecified, set for the beginning of a planned attack;
H (for hour)+hour);

D-day − D
(for day) +
day);

UA. Час Х;

час Ч.

There is no uniformity in
semantic relationships between the elements: Z-bar
is a
metallic bar with a cross section shaped like the letter Z, while
Z-hour is
an abbreviation of zero-hour
meaning
“the time set for the beginning of the attack”, U
is
standing for upper classes in such combinations as U-pronunciation,
U-language. Cf.:
U-boat “a
submarine”. Non-U
is its
opposite. So Non-U
speakers are
those whose speech habits show that they do not belong to the upper
classes.

If
the abbreviated written form lends itself to be read as though it
were an ordinary English word and sounds like an English word, it
will be read like one. The words thus formed are called acronyms
(from
Gr across
− “end^‘”+onym
“name”).
This way of forming new words is becoming more and more popular in
almost all fields of human activity, and especially in political and
technical vocabulary:

Borrowed acronyms
are not
deciphered in both in English and Ukrainian though they may have
dictionary entries:

G.P. (for General Purpose
Vehicle) →
jeep (UA.
джип)

lightwave
amplification
by stimulated
emission
of radiation
→ laser
(UA.
лазер,
лазерний)

microwave
amplification
by stimulated
emission
of radiation
→
maser (UA.
Мазер)

young
urban
professional
+ —ie
– yuppy
(UA. япі).

gulag 1.
the system of
forced-labor camps in the Soviet Union. 2.
any prison or
detention camp, esp. for political prisoners. [Rus.
Гулаг,
acronym
from Главное
управление исправительно-трудовьіх
лагарей −
Main
Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps]

Elmer Durgin gave him a look
which suggested that, should the ELFFS succeed in their goal of world
domination, Bissonette would be aboard the first gulag-bound
boxcar.
(King)

Acronyms
present a special interest because they exemplify the working of the
lexical adaptive system. In meeting the needs of communication and
fulfilling the laws of information theory requiring a maximum signal
in the minimum time the lexical system undergoes modification in its
basic structure: namely it forms new elements not by combining
existing morphemes and proceeding from sound forms to their graphic
representation but the other way round —
coining
new words from the initial letters of phrasal terms originating in
texts.

7. Non-productive means
of word formation.

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