By Robby
If you are new here please read this first.
VOCAB – this is a short version of ‘vocabulary’ and while it’s not something you’ll be using on a very regular basis, it’s always good to know that you can say things like: “I want to build my English vocab” or “I just added another useful English phrase to my vocab!”
LIMO – short for ‘limousine’. Next time around when you see one, you can nudge your friend and tell him – “Hey man, look at that cool limo!”
CELEB – I’m pretty sure you knew this one, but I had to put it on the list to make it complete! It’s obviously short for ‘celebrity’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years down the line people wouldn’t remember the original word at all!
PIC – this is a very handy way of referring to a picture or a photograph. “Hold on a sec, I’ll take a pic and then we’re good to go!”
SEC – this is how you can shorten the word ‘second’. As a matter of fact, I used this word in the sample sentence above, and here’s a couple more sample phrases: “Wait a sec!” or “Be back in a sec!”
DECAF – this is a short version of ‘decaffeinated coffee’ and it will definitely come in handy when putting in an order in a coffee shop late in the evening – “I’d like a large decaf latte, please!”
DETOX – this is a popular word in terms of dieting, and it refers to detoxification whereby you get your body rid of all sorts of toxins. ‘A detox diet’, for example, is a diet consisting mostly of juices, fresh salads and veggies and helps you get much healthier within a matter of days!
VEGGIE – is a short for ‘vegetable’ and is used all the time when people talk about health and balanced nutrition – “I’m eating lots of fresh fruit and veggies, and I’m feeling simply amazing!”
CARBS – carbohydrates. To be honest with you, I think the word ‘carbs’ has become so popular in the food industry that we don’t even have to wait for 20 years before everyone forgets the original word ‘carbohydrates’.
BI’S – biceps. TRI’S – triceps. QUADS – quadriceps (front part of your upper legs) HAMS – hamstrings (back of your upper legs) PECS – pectorals (chest muscles). DELTS – deltoids (shoulders). ABS – abdominal muscles. This is how you refer to your different body parts when you’re in a gym, and not only! You can use these body part names whenever you mention the respective body parts in daily conversations, and you can rest assured that you’ll be understood.
REP – a quick way of referring to a ‘representative’. ‘Rep’ is widely used in all industries – sales rep, trade union rep – and if you’re a sales rep, for example, you may want to start calling yourself a ‘sales rep’ rather than ‘sales representative’.
REP – another meaning of this word is ‘repetition’. If you’re serious into fitness and exercising, you’ll definitely know this one because it’s become an industry standard. You go to gym, pick up a workout program and start performing sets or reps according to your level and preparation.
PREP – now, guess what this short form of a word means? Well – it means ‘prepare’ or ‘preparation’! Typical phrases to learn – “Have you prepped up?” or “I’m all prepped up, we’re good to go!”
LINO – maybe this one is going to sound too technical, but believe me – there are times when you have to describe floor types such as carpet, wooden floor and also linoleum which is the full word for ‘lino’. A typical situation would be renting a house, so you’d better add this word onto your active vocab!
RADS – radiators. This is another DIY term for you, and believe me – your home heating is another one of those things that will come up during your house hunting efforts! “Are these rads old or new?” – you should ask this question when you’re in doubt of the effectiveness of the heating elements if they’re really worn and old-looking.
DOC – this is a how you refer to a ‘doctor’. “I have to visit my doc today, can I have a couple of hours off?” would be the ideal way of asking for some time off at your work so that you can visit a doctor. “Hello doc, nice to see you, how are you?” this is how you’d greet your doctor upon arrival.
MEDS – ‘medications’. “Please don’t forget to take your meds in the morning!” or “Have you taken your meds today?” would be a typical way of making sure your friend, child or a sibling has taken proper care of themselves according to their doc’s recommendations!
CERT – this is a shortened form of ‘certificate’, and you’ll definitely get to use this word when going through the educational system or when attaining new qualifications for your professional life.
PRO – this is a very popular shortening of a word, and it’s quite self-explanatory. It means ‘professional’, and you can simply stick this three letter word in front of other words to indicate professional level of the trade, profession and occupation in question: pro-designer, pro-builder, pro-bodybuilder.
CONGRATS – this word is also very self-explanatory; it basically means ‘congratulations’ and can be used whenever you’re congratulating someone with some sort of an achievement. “Congrats on your promotion, well done my friend!”
VID – short for ‘video’. Typical phrases – “Check out this vid!” or “Can you e-mail me a link to that crazy vid you showed me last week?”
INFO – well, well, well, I’m a real smart-arse, am I not? Of course you knew that ‘info’ is short for ‘information’! I just had to put this word on the list though because word shortening related info wouldn’t be complete without the word ‘info’!
SIS – this is how you can call your little sister. Well, you can still call her “sis” even if she’s older than you, it’s really up to you!
BRO – and this is how you call your brother, and not only your birth-brother. Any close friend of yours deserves being referred to as “bro”, and here’s how you can greet your best friend on the way to college “Hey bro, wassup?”
MIL – is a short for ‘million’, and here’s the most commonly used phrase containing this word: “Thanks a mil!” It’s a fairly common way of thanking someone for a small favor or service, and you’ll sound so much more native-like if you start using this phrase yourself!
SYNC – this English word shortening stands for ‘synchronize’ or ‘synchronization’. “Let’s sync our watches!” – would be something you’d hear in films where a group of agents are splitting up before the operation.
PROBS – “No probs!” obviously means “No problems!” and it’s a typical way you would respond to some request. “Can you please lift this bag up onto that shelf, please?” would be best met with the following response: “No probs!”
Robby 😉
P.S. Would you like to find out why I’m highlighting some of the text in red? Read this article and you’ll learn why it’s so important to learn idiomatic expressions and how it will help you to improve your spoken English!
P.S.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out my English Harmony System HERE!
P.S. Are you serious about your spoken English improvement? Check out the English Harmony System HERE!
Want to become better at reading and writing English?
What’s the difference between abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms?
Learn how to shorten words to improve your English writing
Introduction
We love to shorten everything in English. This is especially true in an age where texting has become the preferred way to communicate with one another. In writing, there are three common methods we can use to shorten words: abbreviations(1), acronyms(2), and initialisms(3). This blog will give you all the information you need to be able to read, write, and differentiate between them.
Abbreviations
Let’s face it, writing long words can be a nuisance(4), especially when you’re in a rush or need to write the same word multiple times. This is where abbreviations come in. Chances are, you’ve already seen many of these abbreviations before, but here are some of the most common abbreviations you are likely to come across.
Days of the week: Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat., Sun.
Months of the year: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sep., Oct., Nov., Dec.
Measurements: “cm” for centimeter, “mm” for millimeter, and “in” for inch.
Titles: “Mr.” for mister, “Ms.” for miss, and “Mrs.” for mistress.
Map Locations: “st.” for street, “Ave.” for avenue, “dr.” for drive, “blvd.” for boulevard and “ln.” for lane.
Here are a few common abbreviations found in writing that tend to confuse people.
i.e. stands for id est, which means, “in other words.”
Ex. I love to eat western food, i.e., pizza and cheeseburgers.
e.g. stands for “example given.”
Ex. Tonight, we will explore some popular areas in Taipei, e.g, Taipei 101, Longshan Temple, and Daan Park.
etc. stands for etcetera, which means, “and other things.”
Ex. She bought way too much stuff at the department store. She walked out with shoes, a hat, pants, and a new blouse, etc.
One thing to note about abbreviations is that they are informal. Most of the time, they shouldn’t be used in academic, professional, or formal writing. Before you use these, just assess(5) whether or not abbreviations are appropriate for what you are writing, i.e. save them for your texts or personal notes rather than your Master’s thesis or C.V.
Acronyms
People often confuse initialisms—which we will cover soon—and abbreviations for acronyms. Some dictionaries are making exceptions since so many people misuse these terms, but as far as acronyms go, they need to spell out another longer word or phrase while making a new word ( they often shorten the lengthy names of certain organizations).
Exam skills: 6 tips to help you with writing exams
One great example is NASA. You pronounce this word just as it’s spelled, and it was created to shorten the official name, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a name that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like NASA does. If the abbreviation doesn’t form a new word that is pronounced just as it’s written, it isn’t technically an acronym. Let’s look at some of the most common acronyms to better understand this concept.
scuba: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
radar: radio detection and ranging
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format
AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Program
TED (talk): tell me, explain to me, describe to me
CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
Yahoo: yet another hierarchical officious oracle
ZIP: Zone Improvement Plan
IKEA: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd
CD-ROM: Compact Disc Read-Only Memory
Initialisms
Some people will claim that initialisms are acronyms, but that is debatable(6). Words like NBA and VIP are initialisms: There is no way to pronounce the letters like a typical word, but we instead pronounce each letter sound separately.
There are some examples that can be classified as both acronyms or initialisms. Think about the word ASAP. You can pronounce this phonetically as one word or say each letter separately A-S-A-P.
There are tons of initialisms, but here are a handful of common examples that everyone can recognize.
IQ: intelligence quotient
lol: laugh out loud
UFO: unidentified flying object
RSVP: répondez s’il vous plaît (please respond)
TBA: to be announced
OMG: oh my god
ETA: estimated time of arrival
NBA – National Basketball Association
VIP: very important person
3D: three dimensional
I will leave it open whether initialisms are a subset of acronyms, but it’s better to understand the subtle differences between abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms regardless.
Conclusion
Knowing how words are shortened in English text will make you a better reader and a more effective writer. Instead of getting hung up on definitions, learn what the most common abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms mean, and you will be well on your way to better understanding how words in English get shortened in text and writing.
Vocabulary
1. abbreviation (n.)
Def. a short form of a word, etc.
Ex. The abbreviation for Monday is Mon.
2. acronym (n.)
Def. a word formed from the first letters of the words that make up the name of something.
Ex. The acronym for “Graphics Interchange Format” is GIF.
3. initialism (n.)
Def. a word formed from the first letters of the words that make up the name of something, with each letter pronounced separately
Ex. The initialism for “very important person” is VIP.
nuisance (n.)
4. Def. a thing, person or situation that is annoying or causes trouble or problems
Ex. Mosquitos are such a nuisance during the summer.
5. assess (v.)
Def. to make a judgement about the nature or quality of somebody/something
Ex. He assessed the hiking route, and it is just too dangerous to proceed until the snow melts.
6. debatable (adj.)
Def. not certain because people can have different ideas and opinions about the thing being discussed
Ex. Whether or not the Earth was created by the Big Bang is debatable.
Photos
Omg-oh-my-god-texting-social-media by Wokandapix
January-calendar-month-year-day by Amber_Avalona
Fractal-mandelbulb-3d-ufo-invasion by cpmacdonald
Sources
https://abbreviations.yourdictionary.com/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-an-abbreviation-and-an-acroynm.html
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
→
abbrbuilding
→
bldgovernment
→
govtword
→
wddozen
→
doz/dzlimited
→
ltdBachelor
of Arts →
BANew 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:
|
English |
Ukrainian |
|
UN − United Nations ;
USA − United States of
NATO − North Atlantic
UNICEF − United Nations
UNESCO − United Nations
OPEC − Organization of
BBC − British
M.P. − Member of
VIP − very important SOS − save our souls;
GI − government issue POW − prisoner of war;
AIDS − acquired immune HIV |
ООН − США Сполучені Штати Америки НАТО; ЮНІСЕФ; ЮНЕСКО; ОПЕК;
ОБСЄ
УНР −
СБУ −
УРП −
СДПУ
ДПА −
ЧАЕС − ЗМІ |
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.
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
- #
Plan.
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………3
1.
Theoretical
aspects of shortened words…………………………………………5
1.1
Shortening
of spoken words……………………………………………………..6
1.2
Graphical
abbreviations and acronyms………………………………………….8
1.3
Abbreviations
as the major type of shortenings………………………………..14
1.4
Minor
types of lexical oppositions……………………………………………..16
2.
Practical
aspects of using shortened words…………………………………….22
2.1.
Usage of abbreviations in Mass Media………………………………………..23
2.2.
Usage of abbreviations in informational and technical
sphere………………..25
2.3. Usage
of abbreviations in Medicine…………………………………………..29
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………33
References…………………………………………………………………………34
Appendices…………………………………………………………………………36
Introduction.
Shortening of words is one of the
developing branches of lexicology nowadays. Being a developing branch of
linguistics it requires a special attention of teachers to be adequate to their
specialization in English and it reflects the general trend of simplification
of a language.
The
shortening of the words is one of the main trends in development of Modern
English, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree
is supported by development of modern informational technologies and
simplification of alive speech.
Shortening
in communication (especially written) the process or result of representing a
word or group of words by a shorter form of the word or phrase. The problems of
shortened lexical units as specific language phenomena in modern languages
attracted attention of many researchers. These problems are considered to
numerous articles and separate researches of Kazakh, Russian and foreign
authors.
The spoken and the written forms of the English language
have each their own patterns of shortening, but as there is a constant exchange
between both spheres, it is sometimes difficult to tell where a given
shortening really originated.
The
main reason for choosing this topic is that there are many words and word
groups which have their shortened version. Very often those shortened words
occur in various texts, such as technical writing, statistical material, tables
and notes. I decided to look up what abbreviations are commonly used in mass
media, medicine, informational and technical sphere, especially in newspaper
articles and textbooks. The other reason is to figure out when and how
abbreviations are used in written language.
The
object of the research: is lexical level of English language.
The
subject of the research: is types and functions of shortenings in English
language.
The
aim of the research: is
giving general characteristics to shortened lexical units and defining the main
ways, types, causes and functions.
The
objectives:
—
Collect
theoretical material about abbreviations, their functions and meanings.
—
Study
and analyze the scientific and educational literature.
—
Analyze the existing categorizations of shortenings.
—
Define the functions of shortened lexical units.
—
Perform
practical analysis about the usage of abbreviations in mass media, medicine,
informational and technical sphere.
The hypothesis: if we develop students’ knowledge of shortened words, we can widen
their vocabulary and develop speech in English language.
Methods of research:
·
Methods of analysis of the information sources and references;
·
critical study of scientific literature;
·
description;
·
comparison;
·
observation.
Scientific basis
of the research:
In this course paper was involved 37 works of scientists on types and functions
of abbreviations.
Structure of the research: This course paper consists of introduction, two parts, conclusion,
references and appendices.
In the first part theoretical
aspects of types and classifications of shortenings are considered.
In
the second part there are practical aspects of using shortenings in mass
media, medicine,
informational and technical sphere.
The
practical value:
This material can be recommended for widening vocabulary and
development of speech and knowledge of English language.
1.
Theoretical
aspects of shortened words
Word-building
processes involve not only qualitative but also quantitative changes. Thus,
derivation and compounding represent addition, as affixes and free stems,
respectively, are added to the underlying form.
Shortening, on the other hand, may be
represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original word is
taken away.
The spoken and the written forms of the
English language have each their own patterns of shortening, but as there is a
constant exchange between both spheres, it is sometimes difficult to tell where
a given shortening really originated. [1]
Most shortened forms of words are not
acceptable in a formal writing. There are two main types of shortened words:
contractions and abbreviations.
There
are two types of contractions: grammatical contractions and single word
contractions.
1.
Grammatical contractions join together two words to make a single word.
Examples: it’s
(it is, it has); don’t (do not); can’t (cannot); you’ll (you will); should’ve
(should have); would’ve (would have); we’re (we are); aren’t (are not);
isn’t (is not), shan’t (shall not); let’s (let us); who’s (who is, who
has); they’re; (they are); doesn’t (does not)
2.
Single word contractions are the shortened form of words that begin and
end with the same letters as the original word, and do NOT have a full-stop.
Generally speaking, you should avoid using these in your writing unless they
are commonly used in a particular field of study (discipline) or used in a
reference list or in-text citation.
Examples: govt (government);
dept (department), Cwth (Commonwealth), Qld (Queensland) [2]
Contractions are regarded as informal
language and should not be used in assignment or essay writing—these words
should be written in full in writing. [1] (Appendix 2)
An
abbreviation is a shortened form of a word that does not end in the same
letter as the original word. Generally, full-stops are used. Unless the word is
used in reference list or is an accepted form for in-text references, it is
important to follow the rules for formal writing and write the term in full.
1. Days and months: They
should be written in full in text, but used in the correct standard
abbreviation for longer months when it is used in reference list
Examples: Jan.,
Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.
2. Compass points: They
should be written in full in text and hyphenated compound forms—do not
capitalise unless you use the abbreviated form in diagrams or illustrations.
Examples: north,
south, east, west, south-western, south-easterly winds
3. Geographical
features: Always write the full name of geographical features in your
written text—do not use abbreviations as you would do on a map or diagram.
Examples:
Sydney Harbour, North Island, Snowy Mountains, Brisbane
River, Cape York. [2]
The
shortening of words also stands apart from the above two-fold division of
word-formation. It cannot be regarded as part of either word-derivation or
word-composition for the simple reason that neither derivational base nor the
derivational affix can be singled out from the shortened word. [3]
Shortening
consists in substituting a part for a whole. Shortening comprises essentially
different ways of word creation. It involves:
1. Transformation
of a word-group into a word;
2. A
change of the word-structure resulting in a new-lexical item, i.e. clipping.
[4]
Shortening may be represented as
significant subtraction, in which part of the original word or word group is
taken away. Shortening consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts,
as a result of which the new form receives some linguistic value of its own.
[5]
Transformations of word-groups into words
involve different types of lexical shortening : ellipsis or substantivization,
initial letter or syllable abbreviations, blendings, etc. [4]
1.1.
Shortening
of spoken word.
As a type of word-building shortening of
spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English
language as far back the 15th century. It has grown more and more productive
ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in
the 20th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development
is particularly intense in English.
Newly shortened words appear continuously;
this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as dub v, a cinema term meaning
‘to make another recording of sound-track in a film in a different language’
(from double); frig or fridge n from refrigerator; mike n from microphone;
tellie, telly or T. V. n from television set; vacun from vacuum cleaner, etc.
[6]
It is interesting in this connection to
compare the morphemes tele – in television and telecast. They are
homonymous but not identical. Tele – in television is derived from Greek tele
“far”, it is a combining from used to coin many special terms denoting
instruments and process which produce or record results at a distance, such as
telecommunication, telemechanics, telepathy, telephone, telescope. Tele – in
telecast does not mean “far”, it is a new development – the shortened variant
of television rendering a special new notion. [1]
Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of «the
strain of modern life» as the mainspring of this development. This is,
obviously, only one of the reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should
not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are
more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.[6]
When dealing with words of long duration,
one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings are involved
into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabic goes farther in
English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words
sound more like native ones than their long prototypes. Curtailment may
therefore be regarded as caused, partly at least, by analogical extension, i.e.
modification of form on the basis of analogy with existing and widely used
patterns. Thus, the three homonyms resulting from abbreviation of three
different words, van ‘a large covered vehicle’, ‘a railway carriage’, the short
for caravan (by aphesis1); van ‘the front of an army’, the short of vanguard
which in its turn is a clipping of the French word avant-garde; and van — a
lawn tennis term, the short for advantage, all sound quite like English words.
Cf. ban n and v, can, fan, man, ran (Past Tense of run), tan, etc. [6]
Shortening of spoken words or curtailment consists in the
reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has
previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some
linguistic value of its own.
The correlation of a curtailed word with
its prototype is of great interest. Two possible developments should be noted:
1)
The
curtailed form may be regarded as a variant or a synonym differing from the
full from quantitatively, stylistically and sometimes emotionally, the
prototype being stylistically and emotionally neutral, e.g. doc – from doctor,
exam from examination. Also in proper names: Becky from Rebecca, Frisco from
San Francisco, Japs from Japanese.[7] The missing part cap at all times
be supplied by the listener, so that the connection between the prototype and
the short form is not lost. The relationship between the prototype and the
curtailment belongs in this case to the present-day vocabulary system and forms
a relevant feature for synchronic analysis. Much yet remains to be done in
studying the complex relations between the prototype and the clipping, as it is
not clear when one should consider them two separate synonymous words and when
they are variants of the same word.[9]
2)
In
the opposite extreme case the connection can be established only
etymologically. Consequently a pair of etymological doublets comes into being ,
e.g. chap – Chapman, fan – fanatic, miss – mistress. Various classifications of
shortened words have been or may be offered. [7] A speaker who
calls himself a football fan would probably be offended at being called a
fanatic. A fanatic is understood to have unreasonable and exaggerated beliefs
and opinions that make him socially dangerous, whereas a fan is only a devotee
of a specified amusement. The relationship between curtailed forms and
prototypes in this second group is irrelevant to the present-day vocabulary
system, and is a matter of historic, i.e. diachronic study.[9]
The change is not only quantitative: a curtailed word is not
merely a word that has lost its initial, middle or final part. Nor is it
possible to treat shortening as just using a part for the whole, because a
shortened word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning
and usage. [8]
Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation because the
resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine
with bound forms. They ran take functional suffixes: «Ref’s Warning
Works Magic» (the title of a newspaper article about a football match
where the referee called both teams together and lectured them on rough play).
Cf. sing. — bike, bod, pl. — bikes, bods, Inf. — to vac, Part.
I — vacking, Past Indefinite tense and Part. II — vacked. Most of
these by conversion produce verbs: to phone, to vac, to vet, etc., in
which the semantic relationship with the prototype remains quite clear. They
also serve as basis for further word-formation by derivation or composition: fancy
n (from fantasy), fancy v, fancier n, fanciful a, fancifully
adv, fancifulness n, fancy-ball n, fancy-dress n, fancy-work
n, etc.; or fantasmo ‘supremely fantastic’ from fantastic+-mo on
the analogy with supremo ‘a chief. [9]
In both types the clipped forms (doc, exam, chap, fan, etc.) exist
in the language alongside their respective prototypes. The difference, how-
ever, is that whereas words belonging to the first group can be replaced by
their prototypes and show in this way a certain degree of inter-changeability,
the doublets are never equivalent lexically as there are no contexts where the
prototype can replace the shortened word without a change of meaning.
The curtailed words belonging to this type are mostly monosemantic
as, for example, lab, exam, fan. Also they are often homonymous: compare
van and vac as treated above, also gym for gymnastics and
gym for gymnasium, or vet for veteran and veterinary.
[6]
The second extreme group, the etymological doublets, may develop
semantic structures of their own. Very complex semantic cases like fancy with
its many meanings and high valency are nevertheless rare.
It has been specified in the definition of the process that the
clipped part is not always a complete morpheme, so that the division is only
occasionally correlated with the division into immediate constituents. For
instance, in phone for telephone and photo for photograph
the remaining parts are complete morphemes occurring in other words. On the
other hand in ec or eco (from economics) or trannie
(transistor) the morphological structure of the prototype is disregarded.
All linguists agree that most often it is either the first or the stressed part
of the word that remains to represent the whole. An interesting and convincing
explanation for this is offered by M.M. Segal, who quotes the results of
several experimental investigations dealing with informativeness of parts of
words. These experiments carried out by psychologists have proved very
definitely that the initial components of words are imprinted in the mind and
memory more readily than the final parts. The signalling value of the first
stressed syllable, especially when it is at the same time the root syllable, is
naturally much higher than that of the unstressed final syllables with their
reduced vowel sounds. [9]
1.2.
Graphical
abbreviations and acronyms
In
Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are formed
because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more
and more information in the shortest possible time. [10]
Because of the ever closer connection
between the oral and the written forms of the language it is sometimes
difficult to differentiate clippings formed in oral speech from graphical
abbreviations. The more so as the latter often pass into oral speech and become
widely used in conversation. [9]
There
are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the
demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When
borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened.
Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin
borrowing fanaticus is shortened to fan on the analogy with
native words: man, pan, tan, etc.
There
are two main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical. [10]
Graphical
abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in
written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are
used for the economy of space and and effort in writing.
The
oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In
Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In these abbreviations in the
spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English
equivalents are pronounced in the full form [12], e.g. – for example (Latin
exampli gratia), a.m. – in the morning (ante meridiem), No – number (numero),
p.a. – a year (per annum), i.e. – that is (idest).[11] in some cases initial
letters are pronounced, e.g. a.m. [ei’em], p.m. [pi:’em] etc. In
such cases they can be treated as lexical initial abbreviations. [12]
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. Abbreviation is achieved by
omission of letters form one or more parts of the whole, as for instance abbr
for abbreviation, bldg for building, govt for government, cdr for commander,
doz or dz for dozen, ltd for limited, B. A. for Bachelor of Arts, N. Y. for New
York State. 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. consequently no orthoepic correlation exists in such cases
and the unabbreviated word is pronounced: ll [lainz], pp [‘peidgiz]. [6]
There
are also graphical abbreviations of native origin where in the spelling we have
abbreviations of word or word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents
in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:
1) Days of the week,
e.g. Mon – Monday, Tue – Tuesday etc;
2) Names of months,
e.g. Apr – April, Aug – August, Sep – September;
3) Names of counties
in UK, Yorks – Yorkshire, Berks – Berkshire etc;
4) Names of states in
USA, e.g. Ala – Alabama, Alas – Alaska, Calif – California etc;
5) Names of address,
e.g. Mr, Mrs, Ms, DR etc;
6) Military ranks,
e.g. capt – captain, col – colonel, sgt – sergeant etc;
7) Scientific
degrees, e.g. BA Bachelor of Arts, DM – Doctor of Medicine.
Units of time,
length, weight, e.g. f./ft – foot/feet, sec. – second, in. – inch, mg. –
milligram etc.
The
reading of some graphical abbreviations depends on the context, e.g. m can be
read as: male, married, masculine, metre, mile, million, minute; l.p. can be
read as long-playing, low pressure. [10]
Abbreviations may be nearly as old as writing itself; they allow a writer to save time, space, and effort.The cost of materials like parchment, paper, and ink was another major impetus to shorten words andphrases. Even with the invention of the printing press, cost remained important, and printers looked forways to save space without diluting the message. Many abbreviations have become standard, includingabbreviations for days of the week ( Mon., Tues. ) and months of the year ( Jan., Feb. ); common Latinterms ( lb., e.g. ); units of time and measurement ( min., ft. ); titles of individuals ( Mrs., Rev. ); and titles ornames of organizations ( NCAA, UNESCO ), government bodies ( SCOTUS, EPA ), and states and cities ( Pa.,NYC ).[13]
The usual practice in American English is to use a period to end any abbreviation that stands for a singleword: for example, assoc. or assn. for association ), whereas in British English the period is typically omittedif the abbreviation includes the last letter of the word. For example, in British writing the word association might be abbreviated as either assoc. or assn (without the period); likewise, Fr. is an abbreviation forFrance, while Fr (no period) is the abbreviation for Father (as the title for a priest). [13]
Initial abbreviations are the bordering
case between graphical and lexical abbreviations. When they appear in the
language, as a rule, to denote some new offices they are closer to graphical
abbreviations because orally full forms are used, e.g. JV – joint venture. When
they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of
pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, e.g. BBC is, as a rule,
pronounced in the shortened form [bi:bi:si:]. [10]
There are three types of initialisms in
English:
1)
Initialisms
with alphabetical reading, such as UK (United Kingdom), BUP (British United
Press), CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), PWA (a person with AIDS) etc;
2)
Initialisms
which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO (United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization), OPEC (Organization Of PetroLeum
Exporting Countries), HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) etc;
3)
Initialisms
which coincide with English words in their sound form. Such initialisms are
called acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for Automated School
System), NOW (National Organization of Women), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome) etc. [10]
Some
initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different
ways of word-building:
1)
Affixation,
e.g. AWOLism (Absent WithOut Leave), ex-rafer (Royal Air Force), ex-POW
(Prisoner Of War), AIDSophobia etc;
2)
Conversion,
e.g. to raf (Royal Air Force), to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) etc;
3)
Composition,
e.g. STOLport (Short Take-Off and Landing), USAFman (United States Air Force)
etc;
4)
There
are also compound-shortened words where the first component is an initial
abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is a complete
word, e.g. A-bomb, U-pronunciation, V-day etc. In some cases the first
component is a complete word and the second component is an initial
abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. three-D (three
dimensions) [10]
Abbreviation of words consists
in clipping a part of a word. As a result we get a new lexical unit where
either the lexical meaning or the style is different form the full form of the
word. In such cases as »fantasy» and «fancy», «fence» and «defence» we have
different lexical meanings. In such cases as «laboratory» and «lab» we have
different styles.
Abbreviation does not change
the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it in the case of conversion or
affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the
primary word, e.g. prof is a noun and professor is also a noun. Mostly nouns
undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to
rev from to revolve, to tab from to tabulate etc. But mostly abbreviated forms
of verbs are formed by means of conversion from abbreviated nouns, e.g. to
taxi, to vac etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in
school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy, dilly, mizzy etc.
[14]
[15]
Lexical abbreviations are
classified according to the part of the word which is clipped. Mostly the end
of the word is clipped, because the beginning of the word in most cases is the
root and expresses the lexical of the word. This type of abbreviation called apocope.
[10] Here we can mention a group of words ending in «o», such as disco
(discotheque), expo (exposition), intro (introduction) and many others. On the
analogy with these words there developed in Modern English a number of words
where «o» is added as a kind of a suffix to the shortened form of the word,
e.g. combo (combination) — небольшой эстрадный
ансамбль, Afro (African) —прическа под африканца etc.
In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped. In such cases we have
apheresis e.g. chute (parachute), varsity (university), copter (helicopter),
thuse (enthuse) etc. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped, e.g. mart
(market), fanzine (fan magazine) maths (mathematics). Such abbreviations are
called syncope. Sometimes we have a combination of apocope with apheresis,when
the beginning and the end of the word are clipped, e.g. tec (detective), van
(avanguard)
Sometimes shortening
influences the spelling of the word, e.g. «c» can be substituted by «k» before
«e» to preserve pronunciation, e.g. mike (microphone), Coke (coca-cola) etc.
The same rule is observed in the following cases: fax( facsimile), teck
(technical college), trank (tranquilizer) etc. The final consonants in the
shortened forms are substituded by letters characteristic of native English
words. [14]
An acronym is
an abbreviation formed
from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be
individual letters (as in laser)
or parts of words (as in Benelux and Ameslan).
There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of various names for
such abbreviations nor on written usage. In English and most other languages,
such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common
in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process,
and they are viewed as a subtype of blending.
[16]
There is a difference between acronyms and
abbreviations. An acronym is usually formed by taking the first initials of a
phrase or compounded-word and using those initials to form a word that stands
for something. Thus NATO, which we pronounce NATOH, is an acronym for North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, and LASER (which we pronounce «lazer»),
is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. FBI,
then, is not really an acronym for the Federal Bureau of Investigation; it is
an abbreviation. AIDS is an acronym; HIV is an abbreviation. URL is an
abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator (World Wide Web address), but many
people pronounce it as «Earl,» making it a true acronym, and others
insist on pronouncing it as three separate letters, «U * R * L,» thus
making it an abbreviation. The jury is still out. [17]
Whilst an abbreviation is the shortened form of
any initial, syllable or parts of a phrase or words, an initialism (or less commonly, alphabetism) refers to an
abbreviation formed from, and used simply as, a string of initials.[18] Although the term acronym is widely used to refer
to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, some dictionaries define acronym to mean «a
word» in its original sense, while some others include
additional senses attributing to acronym the same meaning as that
of initialism. The distinction, when
made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word, or as a
string of letters. In such cases, examples found in dictionaries include NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/, scuba /ˈskuːbə/, and radar /ˈreɪdɑr/ for acronyms, and FBI /ˌɛfˌbiːˈaɪ/ and HTML /ˌeɪtʃˌtiːˌɛmˈɛl/ for initialisms. In the rest of this
article, this distinction is not made. [19]
During World War I and later the custom
became very popular not only in English-speaking countries, but in other parts
of the world as well, to call countries, governmental, social, military,
industrial and trade organizations and officials not by their full titles but
by initial abbreviations derived from writing: the USSR, the U. N., the U. N.
O. Such words formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the
successive parts or major parts of a compound term are called acronyms. [9] Two
possible types of orthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms should
be noted:
1. If the abbreviated written form can be
read as though it were an ordinary English word it will be read like one. Many
examples are furnished by political and technical vocabulary. U. N. E. S. C.
O., also Unesco [ju:’neskou] — United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization’, U. N. O., also Una [‘ju:nou] — United Nations
Organization; U. N. R. R. A., also Unrra [an’ra:] — United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration, etc. A few recent technical terms may also be
mentioned to illustrate this type such as jato, laser, maser and a more than
twenty years old radar. JATO or jato means’ jet-assisted take-off. Laser stands
for light amplification by stimulated emission radiation; maser for micro-wave
amplification and stimulated emission radiation; l radar for radio detection
and ranging denotes a system for ascertaining direction and ranging of
aircraft, ships, coasts and other objects by means of the electro-magnetic
waves which they reflect. One more military term might be added: sten fgun) as
the name for a light weight machine gun derived from the initials of the
inventors’ surnames, Shepherd and Turpin + -en for England. Words belonging to
this group are often isolated from the prototypes. [20]
2. The opposite subgroup consists of
initial abbreviations with the alphabetic reading retained. They also retain
correlation with prototypes. The examples are well-known: B. B. C.
[‘bi:’bi:’si:] — the British Broadcasting Corporation; G. I. [‘djii’aij — for
Government Issue, a widely spread metonymical name for American soldiers on the
items of whose uniforms these letters are stamped. The last abbreviation was
originally an Americanism but has been firmly established in British English as
well. M. P. [’em ‘pi:] is mostly used as an initial abbreviation for Member of
Parliament, also military police, whereas P. M. stands for Prime Minister.
These abbreviations are freely used in colloquial speech as seen from the
following extract, in which C. P. Snow describes the House of Commons gossip:
They were swapping promises to speak for one another: one was bragging how two
senior Ministers were «in the bag» to speak for him. Rigger was safe,
someone said, he’d give a hand. «What has the P. M. got in mind for Roger
when we come back?» The familiar colloquial quality of the context is very
definitely marked by the set expressions: in the bag, give a hand, get in mind,
etc. [20]
1.3.
Abbreviations
as the major type of shortenings
Abbreviations
are freely used in colloquial speech as seen from the following extract, in
which C.P Snow describes the House of Commons gossip: They were swapping
promises to speak for one another: one was bragging how two senior Ministers
were «in the bag» to speak for him. Roger was safe, someone said,
he’d give a hand. «What has the P.M. got in mind for Roger when we come
back?» The familiar colloquial quality of the context is very
definitely marked by the set expressions: in the bag, give a hand, get in
mind, etc.
[9]
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. [20]
Journalistic
abbreviations are often occasioned by a desire to economise head-line space, as
seen from the following example “ CND
Calls Lobby to Stop MLF” («Daily
Worker»). This means that a mass lobby of Parliament against the NATO
multilateral nuclear force (MLF) is
being called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
These regular developments are in
some cases combined with occasional jocular or accidental distortions. The
National Economic Development Council is facetiously termed Neddy.
Elementary education is colloquially
referred to as the
three R’s —
reading, (w)riting and ‘rithmetic. Some kind of witty folk etymology is at play
when the abbreviation C.B. for construction
battalions in
the navy is re-spelt into sea
bees. The
two well-known Americanisms jeep and okay may
be mentioned in this connection. Jeep meaning
‘a small military motor vehicle’ comes from g.p. [‘dзi:’pi:]
(the initials of general
purpose). Okay, OK may
be an illiterate misinterpretation of the initials in all
correct. Various
other historic anecdotes have been also offered by way of explanation of the
latter. [20]
T. McArthur (1998) states that
abbreviation is a shortened version of written word or phrase used to replace
original and save space. There are three types of abbreviations: letter-based,
syllable-based and hybrid. All may have symbolical or lexical function:
symbolic abbreviations serve as formulas (c.c. – cubic centimeters; Fe – iron
from Latin ferrum); lexical abbreviations are generally word-like, some less so
because they are spoken as letter sequences, as with BBC, some more so because
they are spoken as words and often cannot be usefully distinguished from them,
as with NATO, radar. Syllabic abbreviations are not common. They use initial
syllables from multiple words. [21]
Symbolic abbreviations. T. McArthur
(1998) stated that abbreviations that serve as symbols are usually pronounced
as letter sequences or as their full originating words, as with c.c.
(pronounced as ‘cee-cee’ or ‘cubic centimeters’). In some instances, where
abbreviations start with vowel, the use of a and an indicates whether a writer
is thinking them as letters or words: a MP ‘a Member of Parliament’; an MP ‘an
em-pee’. [21]
Lexical abbreviations. Abbreviations
that serve as words fall into three types that shade into a fourth less
clear-cut type:
1.
Initialism. A letter group that cannot be pronounced as a word, and must
therefore be spoken as letters: BBC spoken as ‘bee-bee-cee’.
2.
Acronym. A letter group that can be, and is, pronounced as a word: NATO spoken
as ‘Naytoe’.
3.
Clipping. A part of a word standing for the whole: pro for professional, phone
for telephone.
4.
Blend. A word made from two or more other words, by fusion (brunch from
breakfast and lunch) or by putting together syllabic elements from other words.
[22]
Also T. McArthur states that there are at
least five variations and hybrids of these basic types:
1.
both initialisms and acronyms: VAT (Value Added Tax) is referred to as both
‘vat’ and ‘vee-ay-tee’.
2.
Forms that look like one type but behave like another: WHO (World Health
Organization) is ‘double-you-aitch-oh’, not ‘hoo’.
3.
Part-initialism: CD-ROM (compact disc readonly memory) is pronounced
‘cee-dee-rom’.
4.
Combinations of letter groups and clippings: ARPAnet (Advanced Research
Projects Agency computer network).
5.
Initialisms adapted as acronyms: GLCMs (ground-launched cruise missiles) are
called Glickems. [21]
W.A.
Sabin gives additional advices. When using an abbreviation, do not follow it
with a word that is part of the abbreviation: a collection of CDs (not: CD
disks), forgot my PIN (not: PIN number). [23]
Some abbreviations are always acceptable,
even in the most formal contexts: those that precede or follow personal names
(Mr., Ms., dr., Ph.D.); those that are part of an organization’s legal name
(Co., Inc., Ltd.); those used in expressions of time (a.m., p.m., CST, A.D.,
B.C.). Organizations with long names are now commonly identified by their
initials in all but the most formal writing (NAACP, SEC). Days of week, names
of the moths, geographical names, and units of measure should be abbreviated
only on business forms, in expedient documents, and in tables, lists, and
narrow columns of text. When an abbreviation is only one or two keystrokes
shorter than the full word (Pt. for Part), do not bother to abbreviate except
to achieve consistency in a context where similar are being abbreviated. When
using abbreviation that may not be familiar to the reader, spell out the full
term along with the abbreviation when it is first used. [23]
According to W. A. Sabin, in business
writing, abbreviations are appropriate in expedient documents (business forms,
catalogs, routine e-mail messages, memos, and letters between business
officers), where the emphasis is on communicating data in the briefest form. In
other kinds of writing, where a more formal style is appropriate, use
abbreviations sparingly. Organizations with long names are commonly identified
by their initials in all but the most formal writing. Respect the preference of
individuals and of companies that use a person’s initials in their company name
(Harry S Truman, JCPenney, TJ.Maxx). When a company uses a geographical
abbreviation in its corporate name or in the name of a product, respect the
company’s style (U.S.A. but USA Today; U.S. but US WEST Communication). A few
common business abbreviations are frequently typed in lower-case (with periods)
when they occur within sentences but are typed in all-caps (without periods)
when they appear on business forms (cif. or CIF; c.o.d. or COD; e.o.m. or EOM
etc.). [23]
Analysis includes a few
communication texts, one contract form and one job advertisement. All texts
were taken from J. Dugger and internet database. The analysis has shown that
abbreviations are not common phenomenon in formal texts. However, abbreviations
are more often used in informal correspondence letters. Considering analyzed
sample texts, the most common abbreviations were: ASAP – as soon as possible;
B2B – Business-to-business; CEO – Chief Executive Officer; CIF – Cost,
Insurance and Freight; Dr. – doctor, district; GDP – Gross Domestic Product;
Mr., Ltd. – limited; MBA – Master of Business administration; No. – number;
p.m. and a.m.; P.O. – Post Office; P&L – Profit and Loss; PLC –Public Limited
Company; TQM – Total Quality Manager; VA – Value added. Abbreviated names and
weekdays also occurred very often. [24]
1.4.
Minor
types of lexical oppositions
Sound interchange
is the way of word building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It
is non-productive in Modern English; it was productive in Old English and can
be met in other Indo-European languages. [10]
Sound interchange is the
formation of a word due to an alteration in the phonemic composition of its
root. [25]
The interchange of sounds is a term
denoting change in the phonematic structure of the morpheme in the process of
word changing and word-building. The interchange of sounds takes place
according to definite strict standards for each phoneme in each given language.
[26]
The causes of
sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut
which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the
language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike — stroke, to sing —
song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which
is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel in the
syllable coming after the root (regressive assimilation), e.g. hot — to heat
(hotian), blood — to bleed (blodian) etc. [9]
By the historical interchange of
sounds we mean a case when the change is not determined by the position of the
sound in the word, but appeared as a result of the laws which acted in the
language at some definite periods of its development. It is closely connected
with historical assimilation. Historical interchange of sounds is also
explained by the phonetical structure of the language but has grammatical
significance.
[26]
The process is not
active in the language at present, and oppositions survive in the vocabulary
only as remnants of previous stages. Synchronically sound interchange should
not be considered as a method of word-building at all, but rather as a basis
for contrasting words belonging to the same word-family and different parts of
speech or different lexico-grammatical groups. [20]
Cases of historical interchange of sounds
in English can be found among the three forms of irregular verbs, the degrees
of comparison of adjectives, different parts of speech originated from one
root, the archaic forms of the plural of nouns and other grammatical phenomena.
For example:
The three forms of the irregular verbs:
do [du:] – did [dId] – done [dAn] (vowel
gradation [u:] – [I] – [A] takes place);
fly [flaI] – flew [flu:] – flown [floun]
(vowel gradation [aI] – [u:] – [ou] takes place).
The degrees of comparison of adjectives:
little [litl] – less [les] – least [li:st]
([i] interchanges with [e], [i:]);
much [mAtS] – more [mo:] – most [moust]
([A] interchanges with [o:], [ou]).
The plural of nouns:
man [mxn] – men [men] (vowel gradation [x]
– [e] takes place);
goose [gu:s] – geese [gi:s] (vowel
gradation [u:] – [i:] takes place).
The interchange of sounds is also observed
when different parts of speech are originated from one root:
convert [kon’vE:t] – conversion
[kon’vE:Sn];
intend [In’tend] – intention [In’tenSn] –
intent [In’tent]. [26]
The
causes of sound interchange are twofold and one
should learn to differentiate them from the historical point of view. Some of
them are due to ablaut or vowel gradation characteristic of Indo-European
languages and consisting in a change from one to another vowel accompanying a
change of stress. The phenomenon is best known as a series of relations between
vowels by which the stems of strong verbs are differentiated in grammar (drink
– drank – drunk and the like). However, it is also of great importance in
lexicology because ablaut furnishes distinctive features for differentiating
words. [20]
By the living interchange of sounds we
mean a case when the change is determined by the position of the sound in the
word. It is closely connected with living assimilation. The living interchange
of sounds is mainly explained by the phonetical structure of the given
language. [26]
The other group of
cases is due to an assimilation process conditioned by the phonemic
environment. One of these is vowel mutation, otherwise called umlaut, a feature
characteristic of German Languages, and consisting in a partial assimilation to
a succeeding sound, as for example the fronting or raising of a back vowel or a
low vowel caused by an [i] or [j] originally standing in the following syllable
but now either altered or lost. This accounts for such oppositions as full
(adj), fill (v); whole (adj), heal (v); knot (n), knit (v), tale (n), tell (v).
[10]
The consonant
interchange was also caused by phonetic surroundings. Thus, the oppositions
speak (v), speech (n), bake (v), batch (n) or wake (v), watch (n) are due to
the fact that the palatal OE [k] very early became [tS] but was retained in
verbs because of the position before the consonants [s] and [Ө]
in the second and third persons singular. [9]
Distinctive stress is the
formation of a word by means of the shift of the stress in the source word,
cf., ‘increase (n) – in’crease (v), ‘absent (adj) – ab’sent (v). [25]
Some otherwise homographic, mostly
disyllabic nouns and verbs of Romanic origin have a distinctive stress pattern.
Thus, ‘conduct n ‘behaviour’ is forestressed, whereas con’duct v
‘to lead or guide (in a formal way)’ has a stress on the second syllable. Other
examples are: accent, affix, asphalt, compact (impact),1
compound, compress (impress), conflict, contest, contract (extract), contrast,
convict, digest, essay, export (import, transport), increase, insult, object
(subject, project), perfume, permit, present, produce, progress, protest,
rebel, record, survey, torment, transfer. Examples of words of more than
two syllables are very few: ‘attribute n : : a’ttribute v. [9]
Historically this is probably explained by
the fact that these words were borrowed from French where the original stress
was on the last syllable. Thus, ac’cent comes through French from Latin ac’centus.
Verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native disyllabic
verbs were also stressed in this way: be come, be’lieve, for’bid, for’get,
for’give. The native nouns, however, were forestressed, and in the process
of assimilation many loan nouns came to be stressed on the first syllable.
A similar phenomenon is observed in some
homographic pairs of adjectives and verbs, e.g. ‘absent a : : ab’sent
v; ‘frequent a : : fre’quent v; ‘perfect a : : per’fect
v; ‘abstract a : : ab’stract v. Other patterns with
difference in stress are also possible, such as arithmetic [э’riθ-mэtik]
n : : arithmetical) [эпθ’metik(эl)].
This stress distinction is, however,
neither productive nor regular. There are many denominal verbs that are
forestressed and thus homonymous with the corresponding nouns. For example,
both the noun and the verb comment are forestressed, and so are the
following words: exile, figure, preface, quarrel, focus, process, program,
triumph, rivet and others. [20]
There is a large group of disyllabic loan
words that retain the stress on the second syllable both in verbs and nouns: accord,
account, advance, amount, approach, attack, attempt, concern, defeat, distress,
escape, exclaim, research, etc. [9]
A separate group is formed by compounds
where the corresponding combination of words has double stress and the compound
noun is forestressed so that the stress acquires a word-building force: ‘black
‘board : : ‘blackboard and ‘draw’back : : ‘drawback.
It is worth noting that stress alone,
unaccompanied by any other differentiating factor, does not seem to provide a
very effective means of distinguishing words. And this is, probably, the reason
why oppositions of this kind are neither regular nor productive. [20]
Sound imitation ( or onomatopoeia)
is the naming of an action or a thing by a more or less exact reproduction of
the sound associated with it, cf.: cock-a-doodle-do (English) – ку—ка—ре—ку (Russian).
Semantically, according ti the source sound, many onomatopoeic words
fall into a few very definite groups:
1) Words
denoting sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or
expressing their feelings, e.g. chatter, babble;
2) Words denoting
sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, e.g. moo, croak, buzz;
3) Words imitating the
sound of water, the noise of metallic things, a forceful motion, movements,
e.g. splash, clink, whip, swing. [25]
The great majority of motivated words in
present-day language are motivated by reference to other words in the language,
to the morphemes that go to compose them and to their arrangement. Therefore,
even if one hears the noun wage-earner for the first time, one
understands it, knowing the meaning of the words wage and earn and
the structural pattern noun stem + verbal stem+ —er as in bread-winner,
skyscraper, strike-breaker. [27]
Sound imitating or onomatopoeic words are
on the contrary motivated with reference to extra-linguistic reality, they are
echoes of natural sounds (e. g. lullaby, twang, whiz.) Sound imitation
(onomatopoeia or echoism) is consequently the naming of an action or thing by a
more or less exact reproduction of a sound associated with it. For instance
words naming sounds and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush,
gurgle, gush, splash, etc. [20]
The term onomatopoeia is from Greek onoma
‘name, word’ and poiein ‘to make → ‘the making of words (in
imitation of sounds)’.
It would, however, be wrong to think that
onomatopoeic words reflect the real sounds directly, irrespective of the laws
of the language, because the same sounds are represented differently in
different languages. Onomatopoeic words adopt the phonetic features of English
and fall into the combinations peculiar to it. This becomes obvious when one
compares onomatopoeic words crow and twitter and the words flow
and glitter with which they are rhymed in the following poem:
The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing.
The small birds twitter,
The lake does glitter,
The green fields sleep in the sun
(Wordsworth). [20]
The majority of onomatopoeic words serve
to name sounds or movements. Most of them are verbs easily turned into nouns: bang,
boom, bump, hum, rustle, smack, thud, etc.
They are very expressive and sometimes it
is difficult to tell a noun from an interjection. Consider the following: Thum
— crash! “Six o’clock, Nurse,” — crash] as the door shut again.
Whoever it was had given me the shock of my life (M. Dickens).
Sound-imitative words form a considerable
part of interjections. Сf . bang! hush! pooh! [27]
Semantically, according to the source of
sound, onomatopoeic words fall into a few very definite groups. Many verbs
denote sounds produced by human beings in the process of communication or in
expressing their feelings: babble, chatter, giggle, grunt, grumble, murmur,
mutter, titter, whine, whisper and many more. Then there are sounds
produced by animals, birds and insects, e.g. buzz, cackle, croak, crow,
hiss, honk, howl, moo, mew, neigh, purr, roar and others. Some birds are
named after the sound they make, these are the crow, the cuckoo, the
whippoor-will and a few others. Besides the verbs imitating the sound of
water such as bubble or splash, there are others imitating the
noise of metallic things: clink, tinkle, or forceful motion: clash,
crash, whack, whip, whisk, etc. [20]
The combining possibilities of
onomatopoeic words are limited by usage. Thus, a contented cat purrs, while
a similarly sounding verb whirr is used about wings. A gun bangs and
a bow twangs. [27]
R. Southey’s poem “How Does the Water Come
Down at Lodore” is a classical example of the stylistic possibilities offered
by onomatopoeia: the words in it sound an echo of what the poet sees and
describes.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it flies darkling …
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking, …
And whizzing and hissing, …
And rattling and battling, …
And guggling and struggling, …
And bubbling and troubling and
doubling,
And rushing and flushing and
brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and
clapping and slapping …
And thumping and pumping and
bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and
splashing and clashing …
And at once and all o’er, with a
mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down
at Lodore.
[20]
Once being coined, onomatopoeic words lend
themselves easily to further word-building and to semantic development. They
readily develop figurative meanings. Croak, for instance, means ‘to make
a deep harsh sound’. In its direct meaning the verb is used about frogs or
ravens. Metaphorically it may be used about a hoarse human voice. A further
transfer makes the verb synonymous to such expressions as ‘to protest dismally’,
‘to grumble dourly’, ‘to predict evil’. [27]
Back-formation (also
called reversion) is a term borrowed from diachronic linguistics. It
denotes the derivation of new words by subtracting a real or supposed affix
from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure. [20]
Back-formation is the formation of a new
word by subtracring a real or supposed suffix from the existing word. The
process is based on analogy. [25]
Back-formation is the way of word-building
when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is
opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back-formation. At first it
appeared in the language as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a
borrowed word. Prof. V. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the
whole system of the language on separate words. [10]
The process is based on analogy. The words
beggar, butler, cobbler, or typewriter look very much like agent
nouns with the suffix -er/-or, such as actor or painter. Their
last syllable is therefore taken for a suffix and subtracted from the word
leaving what is understood as a verbal stem. In this way the verb butle ‘to
act or serve as a butler’ is derived by subtraction of -er from
a supposedly verbal stem in the noun butler. Butler (ME buteler,
boteler from OFr bouteillier ‘bottle bearer’) has widened its
meaning. Originally it meant ‘the man-servant having charge of the wine’. It
means at present ‘the chief servant of a rich household who is in charge of
other servants, receives guests and directs the serving of meals’. [27]
These examples are sufficient to show how
structural changes taking place in back-formation became possible because of
semantic changes that preceded them. In the above cases these changes were favoured
by contextual environment. The change of meaning resulted in demotivation, and
this paved the way for phonic changes, i.e. assimilation, loss of sound and the
like, which in their turn led to morphemic alternations that became meaningful.
Semantic changes often influence the morphological structure by modifying the
relations between stems and derivational affixes. Structural changes, in their
turn, depend on the combined effect of demotivation and analogy conditioned by
a higher frequency of occurrence of the pattern that serves as model. Provided
all other conditions are equal, words following less frequent structural
patterns are readily subjected to changes on the analogy of more frequent
patterns. [9]
The very high frequency of the pattern verb
stem+-er (or its equivalents) is a matter of common knowledge.
Nothing more natural therefore than the prominent part this pattern plays in
back-formation. Alongside the examples already cited above are burgle
v<burglar n; cobble v<cobbler n; sculpt v<sculptor n.
This phenomenon is conveniently explained on the basis of proportional lexical
oppositions. If
teacher
= painter = butler teach paint x
x
then x = butle, and to butle must
mean ‘to act as butler’.
The
process of back-formation has only diachronic relevance. For synchronic
approach butler : : butle is equivalent to painter : : paint,
so that the present-day speaker may not feel any difference between these
relationships. The fact that butle is derived from butler through
misinterpretation is synchronically of no importance. Some modern examples of
back-formation are lase v — a verb used about the functioning of the
apparatus called laser (see p. 143), escalate from escalator on
the analogy of elevate — elevator. Cf. also the verbs aggress,
automate, enthuse, obsolesce and reminisce. [20]
Back-formation
may be also based on the analogy of inflectional forms as testified by the
singular nouns pea and cherry. Pea (the plural of which is peas
and also pease) is from ME pese<OE pise, peose<Lat pisa, pl.
of pesum. The ending -s being the most frequent mark of the
plural in English, English speakers thought that sweet peas(e) was a
plural and turned the combination peas(e) soup into pea soup. Cherry is
from OFr cerise, and the -se was dropped for exactly the same
reason.
The
most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation of
verbs (see p. 126) from compounds that have either -er or -ing as
their last element. The type will be clear from the following examples: thought-read
v<thought-reader n<thought-reading n; air-condition v<air-conditioner
n < air-conditioning n; turbo-supercharge v < turbo-supercharger
n. Other examples of back-formations from compounds are the verbs baby-sit,
beachcomb, house-break, house-clean, house-keep, red-bait, tape-record and
many others. [20]
The semantic relationship between the prototype and the derivative
is regular. Baby-sit, for example, means to act or become employed as a
baby-sitter’, that is to take care of children for short periods of time while
the parents are away from home. Similarly, beachcomb is ‘to live or act
as a beachcomber’; the noun is a slightly ironical word de-noting a disreputable former sailor who searches along
the shore for flotsam and refuse or spends his time loafing in sea-ports.
Housekeep conies in a similar way from housekeeper and housekeeping.
There may be cases of homonymy in the group,
namely: house-break is a verb derived by back-formation from house-breaker
and house-breaking meaning respectively ‘burglar’ and ‘burglary’. House-break
is also a back-formation from house-broken
and means ‘to accustom an animal or
a baby to indoor habits and civilized behaviour.
In concluding this paragraph it must be
emphasized that back-formation is another manifestation of the fact that a
language constitutes a more or less harmonious and balanced system the
components of which stand in reciprocal connection and tend to achieve an even
greater equilibrium of the whole. [27]
2. Practical part of
the research
In order to
confirm theoretical positions of our research work we have made a practical
research of using abbreviations. We have chosen some examples from newspapers,
textbooks and have defined their types and full forms.
The type of
shortened words was defined according to classifications of I.V.Arnold. We use
“Oxford English Dictionary of Abbreviations” in order to find the full form of
the shortened words.
We have analyzed
65 different shortened words in newspapers, informational, technical and
medical textbooks.
2.1.
Usage
of abbreviations in Mass Media.
All
types of shortened words are widely used in Mass Media. We used popular
American and British press to find the examples of shortenings. The newspapers
that I used are: “The New York Times”, “Daily News”, “The Wall Street Journal”,
“USA Today”, “The Times”, “Financial Times”, “Daily Mail” and etc. We have analyzed
20 shortened words.
1.An extract from the article “House Approves Bill That Allows
Policy Renewals” published
in November, 15 2013 by “The New York Times”: “…Representative
Nick
J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia, who voted for the
legislation, said that the White House deserved an “F-minus” for
its botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act…”
The
type of the shortened word:
1.
Nick J. Rahall II – an abbreviation of proper names.
2.
F-minus — compound-shortened word.
2.Another
extract from the article called “Obama Proposal Worries Insurers and Regulators” of the same
newspaper: “…The entire underlying premise of the A.C.A. —
balancing costs of the young, old, sick and healthy — has been left adrift with
this announcement…”
The
type of the shortened word: A.C.A. – acronym.
Full
form of the shortened word: American Correctional Association.
3. The article “Spending Worries Weigh on Japan’s Rebound” of “The Wall Street Journal” published
the 13th November, 2013: “…Ms. Nonoguchi is spending more on
gasoline to visit her mother in a nursing home and her family’s food costs have
increased…”
The type of the shortened word: graphical abbreviation of a name
of address.
Full form of the shortened word: Miss.
4.»…There’s a lot of talk about the potential
benefits of ‘Abenomics…”
The type of the shortened word: grammatical contraction
Full form of the shortened word: there
is
5. “…Thursday’s GDP figures show that a slowdown in
exports and personal consumption may have put the brakes on the economy’s fast
growth…”
The type of the shortened word: initial abbreviation
Full form of the shortened word: Gas
Detection Panel.
6. An extract from the article “Runners
get a shock as coyote joins them for race” of the British newspaper “Daily
Mail”: “Runners in a 5 km cross
country race in Arizona had a shock when a coyote joined them on part of the
route last weekend…”
The type of the shortened word: an
abbreviation of units of length.
Full form of the shortened word:
kilometer
7.
The newspaper “The Times” published the 17th of November, 2013, the
title of the article is “New homes cost £1m each”: “…About £1.3bn of taxpayers’ money has been paid to
local authorities through the scheme, according to the National Audit Office…”
The type of the shortened word: graphical
abbreviations
Full form of the
shortened word: m – million; bn — billion.
8. “… have not used the money to
build a single home and some have used the grants for other things, according
to a FOI request by the Labour party…”
The type of the shortened word: acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Freedom of
Information.
9.
The American newspaper “Daily News” 17th of November published an
article “NYCHA spends $9 million a year on
private law firms doing same work as in-house attorneys”.
The type of the shortened word: initialism
Full form of the
shortened word: New York City
Housing Authority.
10. “…Japan hopes the 55-year-old
daughter of late President John F. Kennedy will work closely with Barack
Obama to tackle some urgent U.S.-Japan matters, analysts said…”from the
article “Caroline Kennedy arrives in Tokyo to take up State Department post” of
“Daily News” published the 15th November, 2013. U.S. – an acronym which mean United
States.
The type of
the shortened word:
John F. Kennedy — an abbreviation
of proper names;
U.S. – an acronym which mean United
States.
Full form of the
shortened word: U.S. – United
States.
11. The newspaper “USA Today”
published the 17th November, 2013, the article “Auburn defeats Georgia on
miracle play 43-38”: “…AUBURN, Ala. —
They never believed this was supposed to end in torment, even as the 20-point
lead vanished, even as hope to put together…”
The type of the shortened word: a graphical abbreviation of a name of a state in USA.
Full
form of the shortened word: Alabama.
12. “…It takes a thousand little
things falling exactly into place for No. 9 Auburn to pull off this kind
of season…”
The type of the shortened word: a graphical abbreviation.
Full form of the
shortened word: number.
13.
An extract from article “Van Damme’s Volvo video: the Art of Going Viral” from
“USA Today”: “…Volvo scored big with this ad,
but in reality, most marketers don’t come close to garnering this type of
digital attention…”
The type of the shortened word: an
abbreviation achieved by omission of letters.
Full form of the
shortened word: advertisement.
14. “…Everybody wants their ads to
go viral,» says Ted Marzilli, CEO of consumer perception research
firm BrandIndex…”
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Chief Executive Officer.
15. “…Mixing
regret and some I-told-you-so attitude, Ryan said he and GOP presidential
nominee Mitt Romney «didn’t quite deliver» during their
bid for the White House last year…” This is an extract from the article “Paul Ryan to Iowans: Next time ‘be
a little more skeptical” from “USA Today” published 17th November,
2013.
The type of the shortened word:
GOP – an acronym.
didn’t — a grammatical contraction
Full
form of the shortened word:
GOP – US Republican political party — Grand Old Party;
didn’t — did not.
2.2.
Usage of abbreviations in
informational and technical sphere.
XXI century is considered to be the
century of informational and technical sciences. As these sciences are in the
process of development, a lot of short and long terms are appearing every day.
Some of them are very popular nowadays and known for every person, others are
used only by people of these professional spheres. Here are 25 examples of
abbreviations used in informational and technical textbooks.
1.“…These disciplines now sometimes
go by other names in different cultures and university department names –
system sciences, organization studies, IT, management, IS and especially nowadays, simply informatics…” [29, p3]
The type of the shortened word: initial abbreviations.
Full
form of the shortened word:
IT – Informational Technologies;
IS – Information Services.
2. “…They also use CDs, data stored in computers or disks, software and procedure manuals…”
[29, p13]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym
Full
form of the shortened word: compact disc.
3. “…For instance, even though the
human voice can range up to 20kHz in frequency, telephone
transmissions retain only up to about 5kHz…”[30]
The type of the shortened word: graphical abbreviation of weight.
Full
form of the shortened word: kilohertz.
4.“…by Mark Twain, is in uncompressed form
at 391 Kbytes and compressed form at 172 Kbytes; the compressed
file is around 44% of the original…” [30]
The type of the shortened word: a compound-shortened word.
Full form of the
shortened word: kilobyte.
5. “…Claude E. Shannon published “A
Mathematical Theory of Communication”, in which he presented the concept of
entropy, which gives a quantitative measure of the compression that is
possible…” [30]
The type of the shortened word: a shortening a
proper name.
6.
“… Physical information, such as your gender , age, photo, signature,
fingerprints, scars or DNA also help to uniquely identify you for the
information purposes of immigration, police, access to building and the like…”
[29]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Deoxyribonucleic Acid.
7.
“…Programming languages such as Pascal, COBOL, and Fortran were
developed for business and scientific applications…Today, the most commonly
used computers are desktop PCs, and data is generally stored on hard
drives or USB drives…” [31]
The type of the shortened word:
1) COBOL – an acronym.
2)
PCs
– an acronym.
3) USB – an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word:
1)COBOL – Common
Business-Oriented Language.
2)PCs – Personal
Computer in plural form.
3)USB — Universal Serial Bus.
8.
“…Web sites are often built with HTML, XML, CSS, ASP.NET, Java and
JavaScript…” [31]
The type of the shortened word: acronyms.
Full form of the
shortened word:
1)
HTML
– HypterText Markup Language.
2)
XML
– extensible Markup Language.
3)
CSS
– Cascading Style Sheets.
4)
ASP.NET:
ASP – Active Server Pages; NET – abbreviated form of the word Internet.
9. “…There is a
different strategy, known as RAID, that has gained popularity because it
needs only one additional disk beyond the primary data disks, and it can
tolerate failure of any one disk…” [30]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word:
RAID — Redundant Array of Independent Disks or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.
10. “Such an environmental
perspective was used, for example, in the second assessment report of the IPCC…”
[32]
The type of the shortened word: an initial abbreviation.
Full form of the
shortened word: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate changes.
11. “… Most DVDs have a
storage capacity of around nine gigabytes, 9GB – is enough to hold a
complete movie or thousands of pages of written words…”
The type of the shortened word: initial
abbreviations.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1) DVD — Digital
Versatile Disc in plural form.
2)
GB – gigabyte.
12. “…The major kinds of
digital processors are: CISC, RISC, DSP, and hybrid…” [33]
The type of the shortened word:
1) CISC – an acronym.
2) RISC — an acronym.
3) DSP — an initial abbreviation.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1)CISC — Complex
Instruction Set Computer.
2)RISC — Reduced
Instruction Set Computer.
3)DSP — Digital
Signal Processing.
13. “… Why would a tape say 15 cm
when the length is actually 12 cm?” [29]
The type of the shortened word: a graphical abbreviation of
length.
Full
form of the shortened word: centimeter
14. “…ROM is typically used to
store things that will never change for the life of the computer, such as low
level portions of an operating system…” [34]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Read Only Memory.
15. “… The most famous example of a
command line interface is the UNIX shell…” [33]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Uniplexed Information
and Computing System.
16. “FORTRAN was so innovative not
only because it was the first high-level language, but also because of its
compiler, which is credited as giving rise to the branch of computer science
now known as compiler theory…” [34]
The type of the shortened word: a composition abbreviation.
Full form of the shortened
word:
FORmula TRANslation.
17. “…It grew out of an earlier language
called SIMPLE, written in 1958 by Richard K. Bennett…” [31]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Simulation of Industrial Management Problems with
Lots of Equations.
18. “…BASIC was designed as a
teaching language in 1963 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz of
Dartmouth College…” [34] BASIC — an acronym,
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
19. “…Eiffel is a computer language in the
public domain. Its evolution is controlled by NICE, but it is open to
any interested party…”
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full form of the
shortened word: Nonprofit International Consortium for Eiffel.
20. “…If a programming language is popular
enough, some international group or committee will create an official standard
version of a programming language. The largest of these groups are ANSI
and ISO...” [34]
The type of the shortened word: acronyms.
Full form of the
shortened word:
1)
ANSI
— American
National Standards Institute
2) ISO — International
Organization for Standardization
2.3.
Usage
of abbreviations in Medicine.
We
have analyzed 20 examples of shortened words and defined their type and full
form.
1. The extract
from the section about “Acute
Abdomen and Surgical Gastroenterology”: “…Barium causes severe caking
and peritonitis and should never be given to a patient with suspected GI tract
perforation…”
The type of the shortened word: an initialism.
Full
form of the shortened word: GastroIntestinal.
2.
“Back pain with shock suggests ruptured AAA,
particularly if there is a tender, pulsatile mass. Shock and vaginal bleeding
in a pregnant woman suggest ruptured ectopic pregnancy.”
The type of the shortened word: an initial
abbreviation.
Full
form of the shortened word: Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.
3. “However,
moderate doses of IV analgesics do not mask peritoneal
signs and, by diminishing anxiety and discomfort, often make examination
easier…” [35]
The type of the shortened word: an acronym.
Full
form of the shortened word: intravenous.
4. From the section about the “Biology of Infectious Disease”: “FUO
is body temperature ≥ 38.0° C rectally
that does not result from transient and self-limited illness, rapidly fatal
illness, or disorders with clear-cut localizing symptoms or signs or with
abnormalities on common tests such as chest x-ray,
urinalysis, or blood cultures…” There are several types of abbreviations in
this extract:
The type of the shortened word:
1) FUO
–an initial abbreviation.
2) C – a
graphical abbreviation.
3) X –
ray — compound-shortened
word.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1) FUO – Fever of Unknown Origin.
2) C – means Celsius.
3) X – ray — X – radiation.
5.
“…Common connective tissue disorders include SLE, RA,
giant cell arteritis, vasculitis, and juvenile RA of
adults…”
The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1) SLE —
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.
2) RA —
Rheumatoid Arthritis.
6.
“Past medical history should
include disorders known to cause fever, such as cancer, TB,
connective tissue disorders… Clinicians should note disorders or factors that
predispose to infection, such as immunocompromise (eg, due to disorders such as
HIV
infection, cancer…” [35]
The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1) TB — tuberculosis.
2) HIV —
Human Immunodeficiency
Virus.
7. The extract
from the section “Myelodysplastic
syndromes: who and when in the course of disease to transplant”: “The benefits of HSCT
need to be balanced against risks of nonrelapse mortality, GVHD,
and immune dysfunction. Given the lack of prospective clinical trials in this
area, several issues relating to transplantation for MDS remain
unresolved, including: a risk stratification approach to patient selection…”
The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1)
HSCT — Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant.
2)
nonrelapse
mortality – NRM.
3)
GVHD — Graft versus Host Disease.
4)
MDS — Myelo
Dysplastic Syndrome.
8. “…Exciting areas of
ongoing research that may lead to reductions in posttransplantation relapse
rate include posttransplantation therapies such as DNA methyltransferase
inhibitors, vaccine strategies, and donor lymphocyte infusions to enhance the GVL
effect.” [36]
The type of the shortened word:
1) DNA – an acronym.
2) GVL – an initial
abbreviation.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1) DNA — DeoxyriboNucleic
Acid.
2) GVL — gamma
valeroactone.
9. The extract from the section “Digital
signal processing of the ultrasound echoes”: “…The generic architecture of SDR
systems composed of GPP, DSP, FPGA and high frequency
front-end blocks was proposed by…” [37]
The type of the shortened word:
initial abbreviations.
Full
form of the shortened word:
1)
SDR
– Software Defined Audio.
2)
GPP
– General Purpose Processor.
3)
DSP
– Digital Signal Processor.
4)
FPGA
– Field Programmable Gate Array.
General results of analysis abbreviations in mass
media, medicine, informational and technical sphere.
Usage of
shortened words.
Conclusion.
Abbreviation
is shortening of a word or words and its porpoise is to save space. Most common
types of abbreviations are initialisms and acronyms. Initialisms are pronounced
letter by letter and acronyms are pronounced as a word.
There
are a lot of abbreviations with various meanings. The meaning usually depends
on the context.
The
shortening of words also stands apart from the above two-fold division of
word-formation. It cannot be regarded as part of either word-derivation or
word-composition for the simple reason that neither derivational base nor the
derivational affix can be singled out from the shortened word.
Shortening
may be represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original
word or word group is taken away. Shortening consists in the reduction of a
word to one of its parts, as a result of which the new form receives some
linguistic value of its own.
To reach our aim we have defined the functions of shortened
lexical units; analyzed the existing categorizations and types of the
abbreviations; the types of shortening in the newspapers and textbooks. The
practical part of the investigation which includes very interesting information
for students, self-studied can be recommended for widening vocabulary and
development of speech and knowledge of English language.
On the base of researched work, we come to conclusion that we need
to use the shortening to develop the grammar, its peculiarities, and to widen vocabulary.
The shortenings are very useful in the society. We meet them on
the newspapers, advertisements, all of them are the mass media, medicine,
informational and technical sphere and of course at everyday
communication.
The abbreviation is very wide theme to investigate; it has many
types and tendencies for today. We researched methodical literature, scientific
articles, recent works of methodology scientist; using such methods as
analyzing manuals, textbooks and books, educational magazines, training
appliances, newspapers and of course to find out the latest and the most modern
information we used internet.
In this paper all objectives of research are followed:
—
Collect
theoretical material about abbreviations, their functions and meanings.
—
Study
and analyze the scientific and educational literature.
—
Analyze the existing categorizations of shortenings.
—
Define the functions of shortened lexical units.
—
Perform
practical analysis about the usage of abbreviations in mass media, medicine, informational
and technical sphere.
References.
1. G.
Amandykova, L. Kabysheva “ Lexicology” p 60, 2008
2. “
Academic Skills Office” research of University of New England, 2011
3. R.S.
Ginzburg, S.S. Khidekel “A course in Modern English Lexicology” p110, 1979
4. R.S.
Ginzburg “A course in Modern English Lexicology” p187, 1979
5. Internet:
http://gendocs.ru/v7721/?cc=12
6. I.V.
Arnold “ The English Word” p 110-111, 1966
7. G.
Amandykova “Lexicology of English language”, 2008
8. Hockett
Ch. A Course in Modern Linguistics. N.Y., p313, 1958.
9.
Arnold I.V.. “The
English Word” p135, 1986
10.
E.M. Dubenets
“Lexicology” p 60, 2010
11. Oxford English
Dictionary, 2009
12.
E.M. Dubenets ‘Modern
English Lexicology: Theory and Practice”, 2002
13.
The American Heritage
“New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy”, Third Edition, 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company
14.
G.B. Antrushina, O.V.
Aphanasieva “English lexicology”, 2008
15. E.V. Babenko “A
Manual of English Lexicology” p39, 2009
16.
Fischer, Roswitha “Lexical
change in present-day English: A corpus-based study of the motivation,
institutionalization, and productivity of creative neologisms”, 1998
17. Jessica Clements, Elizabeth Angeli, Karen
Schiller “The Chicago Manual of Style” 16th edition, 2013
18.
«Guide to the Third Edition of the
OED». Oxford
English Dictionary. Oxford
University Press. August 19, 2010.
19.
Barnes, Noble “Webster’s
New Universal Unabridged Dictionary”, 2003.
20.
Arnold I.V.. “The
English Word”,
1973.
21. McArthur, Tom.
Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford
University Press 1998.
22. Dictionary of
Abbreviations (Oxford Paperback Reference) Oxford Paperbacks, 1998
23. Sabin, William A.
The Gregg reference manual. Tenth edition. McGraw-Hill Irvin, 2004.
24. Dugger, Jim.
Business letters for busy people. National Press
Publications, Inc. USA 2002.
25. I.V. Zykova “A
practical Course in English Lexicology” p71, 2006
26. Internet:
http://lib.chdu.edu.ua/pdf/pidruchnuku/18/147.pdf
27.
Arnold I.V.. “The
English Word”, p 149, 1959.
28. The newspapers
“The New York Times”, “Daily News”, “The Wall Street Journal”, “USA Today”,
“The Times”, “Financial Times”, “Daily Mail”, 2013
29. John Gammack,
Valerie Hobbs, Diarmuid Pigott “The Book of Informatics”, 2007
30. Jayadev Misra
“Theory in Programming Practice”, 2012.
31. Jeri Freedman
“Computer Science and Programming”, 2009.
32. Arnulf
Grübler
“Technology and Global Change, 2003.
33. Chris Woodford
“Digital Technologies”, 2007.
34. “Computer
Programming” 2007.
35.
Merck
Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy,
Robert S. Porter, Justin
L. Kaplan, 2011.
36.
“Hematology”, American
Society of Hematology, 2012.
37.
“Ultrasound Imaging”, Masayuki Tanabe, 2011.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
|
Full form |
Contracted |
Notes |
|
not |
–n’t |
Irregular |
|
let us |
let’s |
|
|
I am |
I’m |
|
|
are |
–’re |
we’re /wɪr/ |
|
is |
–’s |
|
|
does |
very |
|
|
has |
||
|
have |
–’ve |
|
|
had |
–’d |
|
|
did |
very |
|
|
would |
||
|
will |
–’ll |
|
|
of |
o’– |
used |
|
it |
‘t– |
Archaic, |
|
them |
’em |
Perceived |
|
is not |
isn’t, or ain’t |
ain’t is |
Shortening words is the process of cutting the beginning or end of a word from a longer word. It involves creating new words by omitting part of the original word but retaining the original meaning. Words are shortened for several reasons, including to save time or space.
Shortening Words: What it Entails
A shortened word is an abridged version of the complete word. Shortening words in a piece of work can be a great way to make it concise.
Shortened forms of words can be valuable, especially when you need to take notes down quickly.
Shortening often has a negative connotation. While it is okay to use shortened forms of words in informal writings, it is best to avoid them in professional and academic writings. Shortened words in professional contents can quickly become a crutch that creates a lack of clarity and understanding.
To shorten words, you need to be familiar with the roots of the words you are shortening. Understanding the meaning of root words will allow you to know where to begin. Make sure you check your spelling and grammar since it may be harder to read and understand shortened words if they aren’t obvious.
If the meaning of a word is not immediately apparent, you may want to look up the root word in a dictionary. It will make you understand what words you can use as the abridged version.
Commonly Shortened Words in English
Days of the week and months of the year: Mon., Tues., Wed., Jan., Feb.,
Unit of measurements: “cm” for centimer, “mm” for millimeter, “in” for inch.
Titles: “Prof” for Professor, “Mr.” for mister, “Mrs.” for mistress.
How to Shorten Words
Shortening words might be a contentious issue, but can also be valuable. Sometimes, going for a shortened version of a word is less complicated than systematically and impassionately going for the complete form.
Many people shorten words to save time and make it easier for the reader to understand and remember what they read. The four most common ways of shortening words are:
1. Cutting the beginning of the word
- Telephone – Phone
- University – Versity
- Raccoon – Coon
- Gator – Alligator
- Parachute – Chute
- Turnpike – Pike
2. Cutting the end of the word
- Rehabilitation – Rehab
- University – Uni
- Professor – Prof
- Application – App
- Introduction – Intro
- Laboratory – Lab
- Continued – Cont
3. Cutting the beginning and the end.
- Influenza – Flu
- Pyjamas – Jams
- Apollinaris – Polly
- Detective – Tec
4. Changing the spelling of the word.
- Vegetable/vegetarian – Veggie
- Christmas – Xmas
- Bicycle – Bike
How to Punctuate Shortened Words
While adding a period at the end of some shortened words is necessary, some are better left that way.
For example, the shortened version of continued is written as cont., while the shortened version of bicycle is written as bike, with no punctuation. Knowing the right scenarios to punctuate will do a lot of good in your writing.
For some writers, punctuating shortened words is an intent of style. They prefer the modern approach, which uses no full stop.
Others, however, prefer a more traditional approach that uses a full stop to indicate that the word is incomplete. These styles work in different scenarios, and it is essential to learn how.
Conclusion
A great way to make your writing concise is to shorten words. Shortening has a significant impact on the length of your word. With the help of punctuating short words, they are still understandable while retaining the meaning of what you’re saying.
In addition to learning how to shorten words, you need to know how to punctuate them correctly. Punctuating short words is often challenging as there are varying rules for what happens. However, the period helps readers understand that a word has been shortened.