Abbreviations and Acronyms in English Word-Formation

Reviews

“…The Index evidently contains no initialism that is pronounced sometimes as an acronym and at other times as an abbreviation, either by the same speaker or by different speakers. As Cannon ( 1987) contains only two such items-VAT and CAD 'computer-aided design' -this is further evidence that current English may not require Gramley and Patzold's "double" category of Abkurzung undAkronym (1985:330-32;see Cannon 1989). …”

“…Both in lexicography and vocabulary study, these were a landmark in the publishing and steady improvement of dictionaries, as for the first time in the history of any language, scholars had available a rather comprehensive collection of recent written items with significant occurrence over a period of time in a variety of journals. When the Barnharts published two large collections of such new items (1973,1980), these two valuable records could be added to the Merriam lists to provide a corpus of 13,683 different items and thus permit close analysis of English vocabulary change in recent decades (see Cannon 1987). Moreover, Barnhart provided more elaborate usage notes that sometimes also differentiated new meanings on the basis of figurative, transferred, or extended shifts, rather than utilizing traditional unrevealing etymologies like "new meaning of an old term."…”

The Self-Reported Influence of Using SMS Language in Texting and Social Media on Saudi Students' Academic Writing

“…In that context, this word is used colloquially to refer to common written abbreviations. In formal linguistic terminology, however, acronym carries a specific technical meaning: it refers to a way of abbreviating phrases by combining the first letters (or sometimes sounds) of the words that make them up, and then pronouncing the resulting abbreviation as a word (Cannon 1989;Grange & Bloom 2000). For example, the phrase self contained underwater breathing apparatus is often shortened to the acronym SCUBA, which is pronounced phonetically (i.e.…”

Humorous Interpretations of Abbreviations as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon

“…Linguists (e.g., Cannon 1989;Fandrych 2008) have studied abbreviations and acronyms from the morphological aspect. Russian folklorist and humour researcher Aleksandra Arkhipova (2008: 413-446) considers folk contractions a phenomenon of 'new folklore' and linguistic play, and has described these with the terms normative and alternative interpretation.…”