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An abbreviation (from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbreviation'' can itself be represented by the abbreviation ''abbr.'', ''abbrv.'', or ''abbrev.''; ''NPO'', for nil (or nothing) per (by) os (mouth) is an abbreviated medical instruction. It may also consist of initials only, a mixture of initials and words, or words or letters representing words in another language (for example,
e.g. Eg or EG may refer to: In arts and media * ''E.G.'' (EP), an EP by Goodshirt * ''EG'' (magazine), a journal dedicated to chess endgame studies * Eg White (born 1966), a British musician, songwriter and producer * E.G. Records, a music record l ...
, i.e. or
RSVP RSVP is an initialism derived from the French phrase ''Répondez s'il vous plaît'', literally meaning "Respond, if you please", or just "Please respond", to require confirmation of an invitation. The initialism "RSVP" is no longer used much in ...
). Some types of abbreviations are
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s (some pronounceable, some initialisms) or grammatical contractions or
crasis Crasis (; from the Greek , "mixing", "blending"); cf. , "I mix" ''wine with water''; '' kratēr'' "mixing-bowl" is related. is a type of contraction in which two vowels or diphthongs merge into one new vowel or diphthong, making one word out of ...
. An abbreviation is a shortening by any of these or other methods.


Different types of abbreviation

Acronyms, initialisms, contractions and crasis share some semantic and
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
functions, and all four are connected by the term "abbreviation" in loose parlance. A initialism is an abbreviation pronounced by spelling out each letter, i.e.
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
( ),
USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
( ), IBM ( ),
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
( ) A contraction is a reduction in the length of a word or phrase made by omitting certain of its letters or syllables. Consequently, contractions are a subset of abbreviations. Often, but not always, the contraction includes the first and last letters or elements. Examples of contractions are "li'l" (for "little"), "I'm" (for "I am"), and "he'd've" (for "he would have").


History

Abbreviations have a long history. They were created to avoid spelling out whole words. This might be done to save time and space (given that many inscriptions were carved in stone) and also to provide secrecy. In both
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
and
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
the reduction of words to single letters was common. In Roman inscriptions, "Words were commonly abbreviated by using the initial letter or letters of words, and most inscriptions have at least one abbreviation". However, "some could have more than one meaning, depending on their context. (For example, can be an abbreviation for many words, such as , , , , , , and .)" Many frequent abbreviations consisted of more than one letter: for example COS for ''consul'' and COSS for its nominative etc. plural ''consules''. Abbreviations were frequently used in English from its earliest days. Manuscripts of copies of the
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
poem '' Beowulf'' used many abbreviations, for example the
Tironian et Tironian notes ( la, notae Tironianae, links=no) are a set of thousands of signs that were formerly used in a system of shorthand (Tironian shorthand) dating from the 1st century BCE and named after Tiro, a personal secretary to Marcus Tullius Ci ...
() or for ''and'', and for ''since'', so that "not much space is wasted". The standardisation of English in the 15th through 17th centuries included a growth in the use of such abbreviations. At first, abbreviations were sometimes represented with various suspension signs, not only periods. For example, sequences like ‹er› were replaced with ‹ɔ›, as in ‹mastɔ› for ''master'' and ‹exacɔbate› for ''exacerbate''. While this may seem trivial, it was symptomatic of an attempt by people manually reproducing academic texts to reduce the copy time. In the
Early Modern English Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...
period, between the 15th and 17th centuries, the thorn was used for ''th'', as in ('the'). In modern times, was often used (in the form ) for promotional reasons, as in . During the growth of
philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...
linguistic theory in academic Britain, abbreviating became very fashionable. Likewise, a century earlier in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, a fad of abbreviation started that swept the United States, with the globally popular term OK generally credited as a remnant of its influence. Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. This question is considered below. Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones and the Internet during the 1990s led to a marked rise in colloquial abbreviation. This was due largely to increasing popularity of textual communication services such as instant and text messaging. The original
SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
supported message lengths of 160 characters at most (using the GSM 03.38 character set), for instance. This brevity gave rise to an informal abbreviation scheme sometimes called Textese, with which 10% or more of the words in a typical SMS message are abbreviated. More recently Twitter, a popular social networking service, began driving abbreviation use with 140 character message limits.


Style conventions in English

In modern English, there are several conventions for abbreviations, and the choice may be confusing. The only rule universally accepted is that one should be ''consistent'', and to make this easier, publishers express their preferences in a style guide. Some questions which arise are shown below.


Lowercase letters

If the original word was capitalized then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for ''Leviticus''. When a word is abbreviated to more than a single letter and was originally spelled with lower case letters then there is no need for capitalization. However, when abbreviating a phrase where only the first letter of each word is taken, then all letters should be capitalized, as in YTD for ''year-to-date'', PCB for ''printed circuit board'' and FYI for ''for your information''. However, see the following section regarding abbreviations that have become common vocabulary: these are no longer written with capital letters.


Periods (full stops) and spaces

A period (full stop) is often used to signify an abbreviation, but opinion is divided as to when and if this should happen. According to
Hart's Rules ''Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford''—today published under the short title ''New Hart's Rules''—is an authoritative reference book and style guide published in England by Oxford University Press (OUP ...
, the traditional rule is that abbreviations (in the narrow sense that includes only words with the ending, and not the middle, dropped) terminate with a full stop, whereas contractions (in the sense of words missing a middle part) do not, but there are exceptions. Fowler's Modern English Usage says full stops are used to mark both abbreviations and contractions, but recommends against this practice: advising them only for abbreviations and lower-case initialisms and not for upper-case initialisms and contractions. In
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
, the period is usually included regardless of whether or not it is a contraction, e.g. ''Dr.'' or ''Mrs.''. In some cases, periods are optional, as in either ''US'' or ''U.S.'' for ''United States'', ''EU'' or ''E.U.'' for ''European Union'', and ''UN'' or ''U.N.'' for ''United Nations''. There are some house styles, however—American ones included—that remove the periods from almost all abbreviations. For example: * The U.S.
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices The ''Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways'' (usually referred to as the ''Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices'', abbreviated MUTCD) is a document issued by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of the Unit ...
advises that periods should not be used with abbreviations on road signs, except for cardinal directions as part of a destination name. (For example, ''"Northwest Blvd"'', ''"W. Jefferson"'', and ''"PED XING"'' all follow this recommendation.) * AMA style, used in many medical journals, uses no periods in abbreviations or acronyms, with almost no exceptions. Thus eg, ie, vs, et al, Dr, Mr,
MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves ...
, ICU, and hundreds of others contain no periods. The only exceptions are (an abbreviation of Numero, Number), to avoid confusion with the word " No"; initials within persons' names (such as "George R. Smith"); and "St." within persons' names when the person prefers it (such as "Emily R. St. Clair") (but not in city names such as ''St Louis'' or ''St Paul''). Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since entered the vocabulary as generic words are no longer written with capital letters nor with any periods. Examples are
sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...
,
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
, lidar,
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...
,
snafu SNAFU is an acronym that is widely used to stand for the sarcastic expression Situation normal: all fucked up. It is a well-known example of military acronym slang. It is sometimes bowdlerized to "all fouled up" or similar. It means that the ...
, and
scuba Scuba may refer to: * Scuba diving ** Scuba set, the equipment used for scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) diving * Scuba, an in-memory database developed by Facebook * Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array, either of two in ...
. Today, spaces are generally not used between single-letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S." When an abbreviation appears at the end of a sentence, only one period is used: ''The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C''.


Plural forms

There is a question about how to pluralize abbreviations, particularly acronyms. Some writers tend to pluralize abbreviations by adding (apostrophe s), as in "two PC's have broken screens", although this notation typically indicates
possessive case A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...
. However, this style is not preferred by many style guides. For instance,
Kate Turabian Kate Larimore Turabian (born Laura Kate Larimore, February 26, 1893 – October 25, 1987) was an American educator who is best known for her book ''A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations''. In 2018 the Universi ...
, writing about style in academic writings, allows for an apostrophe to form plural acronyms "only when an abbreviation contains internal periods or both capital and lowercase letters". Turabian would therefore prefer "DVDs" and "URLs" and "Ph.D.'s", while the Modern Language AssociationModern Language Association (MLA) Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition 2009, subsection 3.2.7.g explicitly says, "do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation". Also, the
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
specifically says,Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 5th Edition 2001, subsection 3.28''Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association'', 6th Edition 2010, subsection 4.29 "without an apostrophe". However, the 1999 style guide for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' states that the addition of an apostrophe is necessary when pluralizing all abbreviations, preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's". Following those who would generally omit the apostrophe, to form the plural of
run batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the bat ...
, simply add an s to the end of RBI. *RBIs For all other rules, see below: To form the plural of an abbreviation, a number, or a capital letter used as a noun, simply add a lowercase ''s'' to the end. Apostrophes following decades and single letters are also common. * A group of MPs * The roaring 20s * Mind your Ps and Qs To indicate the plural of the abbreviation or symbol of a unit of measure, the same form is used as in the singular. * 1 lb or 20 lb * 1 ft or 16 ft * 1 min or 45 min When an abbreviation contains more than one full point, ''Hart's Rules'' recommends putting the ''s'' after the final one. * Ph.D.s * M.Phil.s * the d.t.s However, subject to any house style or consistency requirement, the same plurals may be rendered less formally as: * PhDs * MPhils * the DTs. (This is the recommended form in the ''New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors''.) According to ''Hart's Rules'', an apostrophe may be used in rare cases where clarity calls for it, for example when letters or symbols are referred to as objects. * The x's of the equation * Dot the i's and cross the t's However, the apostrophe can be dispensed with if the items are set in italics or quotes: * The ''x''s of the equation * Dot the 'i's and cross the 't's In Latin, and continuing to the derivative forms in European languages as well as English, single-letter abbreviations had the plural being a doubling of the letter for note-taking. Most of these deal with writing and publishing. A few longer abbreviations use this as well.


Conventions followed by publications and newspapers


United States

Publications based in the U.S. tend to follow the style guides of ''
The Chicago Manual of Style ''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (abbreviated in writing as ''CMOS'' or ''CMS'', or sometimes as ''Chicago'') is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writi ...
'' and the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
. The U.S. Government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The
National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...
sets the style for abbreviations of units.


United Kingdom

Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation: * For the sake of convenience, many British publications, including the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', have completely done away with the use of full stops or periods in all abbreviations. These include: ** Social titles, e.g. Ms or Mr (though these would usually have not had full stops—see above) Capt, Prof, ''etc.;'' ** Two-letter abbreviations for countries (''"US"'', not ''"U.S."''); ** Abbreviations beyond three letters (full caps for all except initialisms); ** Words seldom abbreviated with lower case letters (''"PR"'', instead of ''"p.r."'', or ''"pr"'') ** Names (''"FW de Klerk"'', ''"GB Whiteley"'', ''"Park JS"''). A notable exception is ''
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
'' which writes ''"Mr F. W. de Klerk"''. ** Scientific units (see Measurement below). * Acronyms are often referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalized. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation can be abbreviated as ''"Nato"'' or ''"NATO"'', and
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, ''sev ...
as ''"Sars"'' or ''"SARS"'' (compare with ''"
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...
"'' which has made the full transition to an English word and is rarely capitalised at all). * Initialisms are always written in capitals; for example the ''"British Broadcasting Corporation"'' is abbreviated to ''"BBC"'', never ''"Bbc"''. An initialism is also an acronym but is not pronounced as a word. * When abbreviating scientific units, no space is added between the number and unit (100mph, 100m, 10cm, 10°C). (This is contrary to the SI standard; see below.)


Miscellaneous and general rules

* A doubled letter appears in abbreviations of some Welsh names, as in Welsh the double "l" is a separate sound: "Ll. George" for (British prime minister)
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...
. * Some titles, such as "Reverend" and "Honourable", are spelt out when preceded by "the", rather than as "Rev." or "Hon." respectively. This is true for most British publications, and some in the United States. * A repeatedly used abbreviation should be spelt out for identification on its first occurrence in a written or spoken passage. Abbreviations likely to be unfamiliar to many readers should be avoided.


Measurements: abbreviations or symbols

Writers often use shorthand to denote units of measure. Such shorthand can be an abbreviation, such as "in" for " inch" or can be a symbol such as "km" for " kilometre" (or kilometer). In the International System of Units (SI) manual the word "symbol" is used consistently to define the shorthand used to represent the various SI units of measure. The manual also defines the way in which units should be written, the principal rules being: *The conventions for upper and lower case letters must be observed—for example 1 MW (megawatts) is equal to 1,000,000
watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
s and 1,000,000,000 mW (milliwatts). *No periods should be inserted between letters—for example "m.s" (which is an approximation of "m·s", which correctly uses middle dot) is the symbol for "metres multiplied by seconds", but "ms" is the symbol for milliseconds. *No periods should follow the symbol unless the syntax of the sentence demands otherwise (for example a full stop at the end of a sentence). *The singular and plural versions of the symbol are identical—not all languages use the letter "s" to denote a plural.


Syllabic abbreviation

A syllabic abbreviation is usually formed from the initial syllables of several words, such as ''
Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
'' = ''International'' + ''police''. It is a variant of the acronym. Syllabic abbreviations are usually written using lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, and are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter. Syllabic abbreviations should be distinguished from
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsMigjeni Millosh Gjergj Nikolla (; 13 October 191126 August 1938), commonly known by the acronym pen name Migjeni, was an Albanian poet and writer, considered one of the most important of the 20th century. After his death, he was recognized as one of th ...
'' – an abbreviation from his original name (''Millosh Gjergj Nikolla'') a famous Albanian poet and writer – or '' ASDRENI'' (''Aleksander Stavre Drenova''), another famous Albanian poet. Other such names which are used commonly in recent decades are GETOAR, composed from '' Gegeria'' + ''
Tosks Tosks ( sq, Toskët) are one of two major dialectal subgroups of Albanians (the other being the Ghegs) differentiated by their cultural, linguistic, social and religious characteristics. Territory ''Tosk'' may refer to the Tosk-speaking Alb ...
'' (representing the two main dialects of the Albanian language, Gegë and Toskë, based on the country's two main regions Gegëria and Toskëria, and '
Arbanon Arbanon ( sq, Arbër or , el, Ἄρβανον, ''Árvanon''; la, Arbanum) was a principality ruled by the native Progoni family, and the first Albanian state to emerge in recorded history. The principality was established in 1190 by the native ...
'' - which is an alternative way used to describe all Albanian lands.


English

Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English. Some UK government agencies such as Ofcom (''Office of Communications'') and the former
Oftel The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) (''the telecommunications regulator'') was a department in the United Kingdom government, under civil service control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK ...
(''Office of Telecommunications'') use this style.
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
has various neighborhoods named by syllabic abbreviation, such as
Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stree ...
(''Triangle below Canal Street'') and
SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...
(''South of Houston Street''). This usage has spread into other American cities, giving
SoMa Soma may refer to: Businesses and brands * SOMA (architects), a New York–based firm of architects * Soma (company), a company that designs eco-friendly water filtration systems * SOMA Fabrications, a builder of bicycle frames and other bicycle ...
, San Francisco (''South of Market'') and
LoDo, Denver LoDo (Lower Downtown) is an unofficial neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, and is one of the oldest places of settlement in the city. It is a mixed-use historic district, known for its nightlife, and serves as an example of success in urban reinves ...
(''Lower Downtown''), amongst others.
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
-based electric service provider ComEd is a syllabic abbreviation of (''Commonwealth'') and (Thomas) ''Edison''. Sections of
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
are also often colloquially syllabically abbreviated, as in NorCal (''Northern California''), CenCal (''Central California''), and SoCal (''Southern California''). Additionally, in the context of Los Angeles, California, the Syllabic abbreviation SoHo (Southern Hollywood) refers to the southern portion of the Hollywood neighborhood. Partially syllabic abbreviations are preferred by the US Navy, as they increase readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence '' DESRON 6'' is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6", while ''
COMNAVAIRLANT Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic (a. k. a. COMNAVAIRLANT, AIRLANT, and CNAL) is the aviation Type Commander (TYCOM) for the United States Naval aviation units operating primarily in the Atlantic under United States Fleet Forces Command. Type Co ...
'' would be "Commander, Naval Air Force (in the) Atlantic." Syllabic abbreviations are a prominent feature of
Newspeak Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate that is the setting of the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. In the novel, the Party created Newspeak to meet the ideological requirements ...
, the fictional language of George Orwell's dystopian novel ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...
''. The political contractions of Newspeak—''Ingsoc'' (English Socialism), ''Minitrue'' (Ministry of Truth), ''Miniplenty'' (
Ministry of Plenty The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. The use of contradicto ...
)—are described by Orwell as similar to real examples of German ''(
q.v. } (right to left). , - , ''quo errat demonstrator'', , where the prover errs, , A pun on "quod erat demonstrandum" , - , ''quo fata ferunt'', , where the fates bear us to, , motto of Bermuda , - , ''quo non ascendam'' , , to what heights can I ...
)'' and Russian contractions (''
q.v. } (right to left). , - , ''quo errat demonstrator'', , where the prover errs, , A pun on "quod erat demonstrandum" , - , ''quo fata ferunt'', , where the fates bear us to, , motto of Bermuda , - , ''quo non ascendam'' , , to what heights can I ...
)'' in the 20th century. Like ''Nazi'' (''Nationalsozialismus'') and ''Gestapo'' (''Geheime Staatspolizei''), ''politburo'' ( Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), ''Comintern'' (Communist International), ''
kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...
'' ( collective farm), and ''Komsomol'' (Young Communists' League), the contractions in Newspeak are supposed to have a political function by virtue of their abbreviated structure itself: nice sounding and easily pronounceable, their purpose is to mask all ideological content from the speaker. A more recent syllabic abbreviation has emerged with the disease
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
''(COrona VIrus Disease 2019)'' caused by the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus (itself frequently abbreviated to
SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...
, partly an initialism).


German

Syllabic abbreviations were and are common in
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
; much like acronyms in English, they have a distinctly modern connotation, although contrary to popular belief, many date back to before 1933, if not the end of
the Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. ''Kriminalpolizei'', literally ''criminal police'' but idiomatically the
Criminal Investigation Department The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of a police force to which most plainclothes detectives belong in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth nations. A force's CID is distinct from its Special Branch (though officers of b ...
of any German police force, begat ''KriPo'' (variously capitalised), and likewise ''Schutzpolizei'', the ''protection police'' or ''uniform department'', begat ''SchuPo''. Along the same lines, the Swiss Federal Railways' Transit Police—the ''Transportpolizei''—are abbreviated as the ''TraPo''. With the National Socialist German Workers' Party gaining power came a frenzy of government reorganisation, and with it a series of entirely new syllabic abbreviations. The single national police force amalgamated from the ''Schutzpolizeien'' of the various states became the ''Ordnungspolizei'' or "order police"; the state KriPos together formed the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' or "security police"; and there was also the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
(''Geheime Staatspolizei'') or "secret state police". The new order of the
German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **G ...
in the east brought about a conscious denazification, but also a repudiation of earlier turns of phrase in favour of neologisms such as '' Stasi'' for ''Staatssicherheit'' ("state security", the secret police) and ''VoPo'' for ''Volkspolizei''. The phrase ''politisches Büro'', which may be rendered literally as ''office of politics'' or idiomatically as ''political party steering committee'', became '' Politbüro''. Syllabic abbreviations are not only used in politics, however. Many business names, trademarks, and service marks from across Germany are created on the same pattern: for a few examples, there is
Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when ...
, from ''Theo Albrecht'', the name of its founder, followed by ''discount'';
Haribo Haribo ( ) is a German confectionery company founded by Hans Riegel Sr.. It began in Kessenich, Bonn, Germany. The name "Haribo" is a syllabic abbreviation formed from Hans Riegel Bonn. The company created the first gummy candy in 1960 in the f ...
, from ''Hans Riegel'', the name of its founder, followed by ''Bonn'', the town of its head office; and Adidas, from ''Adolf "Adi" Dassler'', the nickname of its founder followed by his surname.


Russian

Syllabic abbreviations are very common in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. They are often used as names of organizations. Historically, popularization of abbreviations was a way to simplify mass-education in 1920s (see
Likbez Likbez (russian: ликбе́з, ; from a Russian abbreviation for russian: ликвида́ция безгра́мотности, translit=likvidatsiya bezgramotnosti, label=none, , meaning "elimination of illiteracy") was a campaign of eradicat ...
). Leninist organisations such as the '' Comintern'' (''Communist International'') and '' Komsomol'' (''Kommunisticheskii Soyuz Molodyozhi'', or "Communist youth union") used Russian language syllabic abbreviations. In the modern Russian language, words like ''Rosselkhozbank'' (from Rossiysky selskokhozyaystvenny bank — Russian Agricultural Bank, RusAg) and ''Minobrnauki'' (from Ministerstvo obrazovaniya i nauki — Ministry of Education and Science) are still commonly used. In nearby
Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
, there are ''Beltelecom'' (Belarus Telecommunication) and Belsat (Belarus Satellite).


Spanish

Syllabic abbreviations are common in
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
; examples abound in organization names such as Pemex for ''Petróleos Mexicanos'' ("Mexican Petroleums") or Fonafifo for ''Fondo Nacional de Financimiento Forestal'' (National Forestry Financing Fund).


Malay and Indonesian

In Southeast Asian languages, especially in
Malay languages The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, which is the national language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia; it further serves as basis for Ind ...
, syllabic abbreviations are also common; examples include Petronas (for ''Petroliam Nasional'', "National Petroleum"), its Indonesian equivalent Pertamina (from its original name ''Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak dan Gas Bumi Negara'', "State Oil and Natural Gas Mining Company"), and Kemenhub (from ''Kementerian Perhubungan'', "Ministry of Transportation")


Chinese and Japanese kanji

East Asian languages whose writing systems use
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
form abbreviations similarly by using key Chinese characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
, ''kokusai rengō'' (国際連合) is often abbreviated to ''kokuren'' (国連). (Such abbreviations are called ryakugo (略語) in Japanese; see also
Japanese abbreviated and contracted words Abbreviated and contracted words are a common feature of Japanese. Long words are often contracted into shorter forms, which then become the predominant forms. For example, the University of Tokyo, in Japanese becomes , and "remote control", , be ...
). The syllabic abbreviation of
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
words is frequently used for universities: for instance, ''Tōdai'' (東大) for ''Tōkyō daigaku'' (東京大学,
University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...
) and is used similarly in Chinese: ''Běidà'' (北大) for ''Běijīng Dàxué'' (北京大学, Peking University). The English phrase " Gung ho" originated as a Chinese abbreviation.


See also

*
Abbreviation (music) Abbreviations in music are of two kinds, namely, abbreviations of terms related to musical expression, and the true musical abbreviations by the help of which certain passages, chords, etc., may be notated in a shortened form, to the greater conv ...
*
Clipping (morphology) In linguistics, clipping, also called truncation or shortening, is word formation by removing some segments of an existing word to create a synonym. Clipping differs from abbreviation, which is based on a shortening of the written, rather tha ...
*
Gramogram A gramogram, grammagram, or letteral word is a letter or group of letters which can be pronounced to form one or more words, as in "CU" for "see you". They are a subset of rebuses, and are commonly used as abbreviations. They are sometimes used as ...
*
List of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions This is a list of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions, including hospital orders (the patient-directed part of which is referred to as sig codes). This list does not include abbreviations for pharmaceuticals or drug name suffixes such as C ...
* List of abbreviations in photography *
List of acronyms Lists of acronyms contain acronyms, a type of abbreviation formed from the initial components of the words of a longer name or phrase. They are organized alphabetically and by field. Alphabetical * List of acronyms: 0–9 * List of acronyms: A ...
*
List of business and finance abbreviations This is a list of abbreviations used in a business of financial context. 0-9 *1H – First half of the year *24/7 – 24 hours a day, seven days a week *80/20 – According to the Pareto principle, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects c ...
*
List of classical abbreviations The following list contains a selection from the Latin abbreviations that occur in the writings and inscriptions of the Romans. A *A. – ''Absolvo, Actum, Aedilis, Aes, Aedilis, Ager, Ago, Aio, Amicus, Annus, Antiquo, Auctor, Auditor, Aug ...
*
List of medieval abbreviations Examples of sigla in use in the Middle Ages: A *ā—'' annus'' or ''aut.'' *á—''aut''. *Ắ—'' Antiphona''. *a'—'' antiphona'' or ''autem''. *a.—'' annus''. *A.—''Accursius'' or ''Albericus''. *A:—''Amen''. *ab.—'' Abbas ...
*
List of portmanteaus This is a selection of portmanteau words. Animals Hybrids * cama, from camel and llama * cattalo, from cattle and buffalo * donkra, from donkey and zebra (progeny of donkey stallion and zebra mare) cf. zedonk below * geep, from goat and sheep ...
*
Neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
*
Numeronym A numeronym is a number-based word. Most commonly, a numeronym is a word where a number is used to form an abbreviation (albeit not an acronym or an initialism). Pronouncing the letters and numbers may sound similar to the full word, as in " K9" ...
*
RAS syndrome RAS syndrome (where "RAS" stands for "redundant acronym syndrome", making the phrase "RAS syndrome" homological) is the redundant use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym (or other initialism) in conjunction with the abbreviated f ...
*
SMS language Short Message Service (SMS) language, textism, or textese is the abbreviated language and slang commonly used in the late 1990s and early 2000s with mobile phone text messaging, and occasionally through Internet-based communication such as ema ...
* The abbreviations used in the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary *
Unicode alias names and abbreviations In Unicode, characters can have a unique name. A character can also have one or more alias names. An alias name can be an abbreviation, a C0 or C1 control name, a correction, an alternate name or a figment. An alias too is unique over all names an ...


Notes


References


External links

* * {{Authority control