Abbreviations

7 Key excerpts on "Abbreviations"

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  Dictionary of Lexicography

  • R. R. K. Hartmann, Gregory James(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A

  abbreviation

  A shortened form of a word, phrase or term which represents its full form. Abbreviations can be subdivided into ‘clippings’ (vet for veterinary surgeon), ‘contractions’ (don’t for do not), ‘acronyms’ (EURALEX for European Association for Lexicography), ‘initialisms’, ‘aerophones’ or ‘alphabetisms’ (DRC for Dictionary Research Centre, VIP for very important person) and ‘blends’ (brunch for breakfast/lunch). Reference works vary in their treatment of Abbreviations. In general dictionaries, they may be given HEADWORD status, or be covered in separate lists in the front or back matter.

  Abbreviations are often used in dictionaries to indicate a word’s grammatical role (e.g. vt for transitive verb) or morphological features (e.g. m or masc for masculine) or to label a particular usage (e.g. obs for obsolete). Annotated lists of the Abbreviations used are normally given in the USER’S GUIDE or elsewhere.

  CODE (2), EXPANSION, TEXT COMPRESSION.

  Landau 1984, Cannon 1990, ISO 1990, McArthur 1992, Svensén 1993.

  Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary (J.E.Towell), Detroit MI, 1989; The Oxford Dictionary of Abbreviations, Oxford, 1992.

  WWW Acronym and Abbreviation Server. www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms/index.html

  ABC

  The first three letters of the LATIN ALPHABET, often found in the titles of primers or introductory works on any subject, as a synonym of ‘introductory dictionary’.

  XYZ.

  A.B.C. of English Usage (H.A.Treble & G.H. Vallins), Oxford, 1936; ABC of Plain Words

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  Optimization of natural communication systems

  • Olga Akhmanova(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  (1*) The great strides which are being made by sociolinguists give hope that the reason will soon be explained why young people (in quite different parts of the world and members of quite different social classes) derive so much satisfaction from curtailing ordinary words (in situations where economy does not play a role). However this certainly has very little to do with the preoccupations of this book. Nor are we in the least interested at the moment in euphemistic Abbreviations, i. e., the various ways of making a four letter word sound less objectionable by phonetic dissimulation, as, for instance, d-n, or d-d, etc. The coast thus appears to be cleared and it seems that nothing can prevent us from taking a quiet and undisturbed look at the optimal uses of Abbreviations in intellective communication. But more difficulties crop up. First and foremost we have again the old problem of the dialectic unity of language and speech, the 71 protean relationship which refuses to lend itself to static analy-sys (as everybody knows, when a linguist speaks of synchrony, he means dynamic synchrony, since the natural movement in-herent in natural languages cannot be stopped). Normally, language exists only in and through speech, and knows no other ontology. But at a highly developed stage of scientific and scientific-technical intercourse the semiotician can and does step in and suggests various interlinguistic improve-ments. The contribution of the interlinguistic approach to abbrevi-ation is especially noticeable in this country in the way many young linguists substitute initial-letter-compounds for combinat-ive terms.

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  Extra-grammatical Morphology in English

  Abbreviations, Blends, Reduplicatives, and Related Phenomena

  • Elisa Mattiello(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Principles of contextual suitability 213 role in language economy. That is, they conform to Zipf’s (1949) “Principle of Least Effort” and Martinet’s (1955) “Principle of Linguistic Economy”, according to which shorter and simpler communication is favoured over redundancy. In their specialised, scientific and journalistic uses, Abbreviations repre- sent marked choices, but are highly accessible to the community of speakers who belong to the same group and share a certain terminology, allowing them to abbreviate what is easily recoverable (e.g. CA ← carcinoma used by doctors for ‘cancer’) (Mattiello forth.). Blends are likewise more eco- nomical than canonical compounds. They often iconically represent, through an amalgamated noun, things or substances consisting of several amalga- mated components, as in chloral for an amalgam of chlorine and alcohol. These formations, therefore, answer the need for “conciseness” which is typical of specialised discourse (Gotti 2005: 40). 4) Naming. Acronyms and initialisms often serve a naming function, that is they name new discoveries, inventions, institutions, organisations, etc., providing specific labels which can circulate internationally. For instance, LH is the recent name for the ‘Laboratory corporation of America Holdings’ and CVA is the medical term for ‘Cherry Virus A’. They are often im- promptu coinages, which later acquire the status of stable widespread de- nominations. As noted by Ronneberger-Sibold (2008: 206), not only are these denominations easy to pronounce, perceive, and memorise, they are also motivated “by the iconic principle that one thing should be named by one word, instead of being described by several words”. Whereas, in general, “The full form is virtually always available as an alternant in the language system” (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1632–1633), the abbreviated form may be more common and widespread (cf. DNA vs. deoxyribonucleic acid).

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  For the Love of Language

  An Introduction to Linguistics

  • Kate Burridge, Tonya N. Stebbins(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  In comparison, fnelg and phwooma are not acceptable in English because they do not follow the sound patterns of the language. This is because the consonant clusters suggested by fn and phw are not available in English (well, apart from curiosities such as the interjections fnarr! and phwoooar!). In terms of their meanings, the only requirement really is that new words should be use- ful in some way. You might think about what areas of life have seen the development of new words in the last twenty years (computers, types of music, lifestyle and so on). In the following discussion, we examine some of the word-formation processes that are behind these creations; we emphasise here that these processes are found in languages around the world (though there are usually differences in significance and liveliness when it comes to word creation). As usual, we will start with English before moving to a cross-linguistic perspective, in this case provided by German. ACRONYMS Acronyms are words formed from the initials of other words. For example, mooc comes from ‘massive open online course’ and fomo from ‘fear of missing out’. The actual label ‘acronym’ came into being in the 1940s and is based on the Greek words acro- ‘tip, or point’ and onym ‘name’. Technically, for something to be an acronym, the resulting word has to be pronounce- able like ordinary words in the language. So, examples that are pronounced as strings of letter names, such as BYOD (‘bring your own device’), are not acronyms but rather initialisms (or alphabetisms ). Some words manage to fit into both categories. The now international word OK is an abbreviation and an acronym because the letter names also make a pronounceable English word ( okay ). Occasional examples are based on successive syllables of single words. They include a few well-known examples such as TV from ‘television’ and PJs from ‘pyjamas’. Other variations involve speakers taking more of the words than simply the initial letters.

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  A Student's Dictionary of Language and Linguistics

  • Larry Trask(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  clipped form.

  abbreviatory convention Any standard way of using conventional symbols in order to state a linguistic generalization very briefly. In phonology, for example, the statement V[+ high] → Ø / V___{C,#}, which conventionally means “a high vowel is deleted when it is both preceded by another vowel and followed either by a consonant or by the end of a word” illustrates several abbreviatory conventions: the use of the symbols V and C for “any vowel” and “any consonant”, the use of the symbol → for “changes to”, the use of Ø for “nothing at all”, the use of / for “in the following circumstances”, the use of ________ for “in this position”, and the use of # for “a word boundary”.

  Abduction A particular type of reasoning, in which a person observes a phenomenon Y, remembers a generalization that can derive Y from X, and concludes that X is therefore true. While logically invalid, this type of reasoning is widely regarded as important both in the acquisition of language by children and in producing language change. An example is the replacement of the traditional form There are a lot of people here by the innovation There’s a lot of people here in the speech of many speakers. Presumably speakers noted that the word there comes first in such sentences, recalled that the subject of a sentence normally comes first, and concluded that the subject in this case must be there (and that the verb must therefore agree with there, and not with a lot of people).

  Abercrombie, David A British phonetician (1909–92), prominent as a researcher, a teacher and a writer; he coined a good deal of the terminology of phonetics.

  ablative In a language with case, that case form which typically expresses the meaning ‘out of’ or ‘away from’. For example, the Turkish noun ev ‘house’ has an ablative evden

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  Communication 2000

  • J C Huebsch(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Butterworth-Heinemann

    (Publisher)

  13 Abbreviations 13.1 INTRODUCTION The rate at which the content and methods of modern communication are ad-vancing demands abbreviated forms of writing. The mass media use abbrevia-tions to indicate business organisations, associations, government institutions and corporations. An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word that replaces a longer word or group of words. The aim of using the abbreviation is to save time, space and money (Less paper and ink). In order that the use of Abbreviations may be effective, however, both the communicator and the communicatee should un-derstand how they are used and what each represents. The watchword is to use Abbreviations only when necessary. Certain Abbreviations (f.o.r., f.o.b., and c.w.o., for instance) have become part of business writing, but the use of un-familiar Abbreviations could lead to misinterpretations and misunderstandings. The communicator and the receiver cannot possibly remember all existing ab-breviations, but the widely accepted forms should be memorised and made part of their vocabulary. There are four types of Abbreviations: contractions, ordi-nary' Abbreviations, acronyms, and letter-groups. 13.2 CONTRACTIONS A contraction is one word which represents a longer word or more than one word. The contraction always contains an apostrophe which usually replaces the miss-ing letters. Examples are not they will you are we are she will aren't they'll you're we're she'll 148 13.3 ORDINARY Abbreviations These Abbreviations are read in full for what they represent. Each letter is pronounced individually. The characteristics of the ordinary abbreviation are the following: • They are generally written in small letters. • Periods are used after each symbol. • When both the word and the abbreviation begin and end with the same let-ters, the period is omitted: mister = Mr mistress = Mrs Examples c.i.f.

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  Current Research in Puerto Rican Linguistics

  • Melvin Gonzalez-Rivera, Melvin González-Rivera(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  cabrón, this term is also very offensive when used in other contexts. Therefore, the meaning giving in the text messages is one of bonding in the same way that the terms of endearments work for the interaction between males and females. These terms may represent an attempt to affirm an unspoken identity among texters and their relationship within their message exchange and getting their meaning across through performativity.

  6.13 Abbreviations

  Abbreviations were very common among both males and females and across proficiency levels. Below are some examples of how participants abbreviated, merged, and spelled Spanish and English words:

  (38)	Male:	Q acs? (Qué haces?)
  ‘What are you doing?’
  (39)	Female:	Dond stas? (Donde estás?)
  ‘Where are you?’
  (40)	Male:	Llama plis te amo bye.
  ‘Call me please I love you bye’
  (41)	Male:	no klases los viernes. Thats exelent
  ‘No clases on Friday. That’s excellent’

  Abbreviation is one of the most relevant linguistic features salient in the corpus. Both males and females showed Abbreviations in both English and Spanish. The choices of words were very similar and consistent across participants: loka, stas, porq showed that participants are comfortable using these variations in Spanish. Originally, texters and online communities used these Abbreviations to economize characters. Yet, as the examples above show, in some cases they are not economizing characters, as in the case of loka instead of loca. Therefore these expressions show a difference in informal (loka) and formal (loca) register. It is becoming more common in social media as well as in texting to use this non-standard abbreviation of this word. Thus language is being reshaped by these interactions prompted by CMC and texters are creating their own identity as part of this interaction by the choices they make when spelling these words, which is aligned with Tagg (2012). These patterns also show how texting provides a space for multiple identities to emerge through performativity and creativity in language use.

  The spelling of please as plis

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