Shortening. Types of clipping: apocope, aphaeresis, syncope. Acronyms

Shortening is the way of forming new words by clipping the existing lexical units to create shorter words convenient for the use in speech.

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.

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 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 influ 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.

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);

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

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

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.

There's a little girl out there, about four years old, cute as devil.

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:neuj 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.

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