Contents introduction chapter I. Word formation in modern englsh

2.2. The Types of Shortening
There are a number of types of shortenings: abbreviation, acronym, clippings and contraction. Each type has it’s own ways to be shortened and sometimes it is confusing to distinguish without a deep theory.

Shortenings



Contraction

Abbreviations

Clippings

Acronym

Abbreviations. This is a process of replacement of longer phrases (names of well-known organizations, agencies and institutions, political parties, famous people, official offics) to the initial letters the whole group stands for. They are normally pronounced letter by letter, for example, BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation; JFK= John Fitzgerald Kennedy; HR= human resources.
We have to mention that abbreviations are also divided into several groups:
Graphical abbreviation is the result of shortening of a word or a word-group only in written speech (for the economy of space and effort in writing), while orally the corresponding full form is used:
days of the week and months, e.g. Sun., Tue., Feb., Oct., Dec.;
states in the USA, e.g. Alas., CA, TX;
forms of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Dr.;
scientific degrees, e.g. BA, BSc., MA, MSc., MBA, PhD.;
military ranks, e.g. Col.;
units of measurement, e.g. sec., ft, km.
internet abbreviations, e.g. BTW, FYI, TIA, AFAIK, TWIMC, MWA.
Lexical abbreviation is the result of shortening of a word or a word-group both in written and oral speech.
Alphabetical abbreviation (initialism) is a shortening which is read as a succession of the alphabetical readings of the constituent letters, e.g. BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), MTV (Music Television), EU (European Union), MP (Member of Parliament), WHO (World Health Organisation), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) etc.
Abbreviations are commonly used in the medical world to save time and space whilst writing in the patients' medical records. As various specialties have evolved, each has developed a collection of commonly used abbreviations within its practice, which may not be recognizable to those not working within the same field. Abbreviations are commonly used in this fielst in order to save time. Some abbreviations are only clear to those who work in that field, but there are some which are easy to understand for patients or frequent-commuters. There are no time consuming to ask where patients can wait and sit, and using these shorted-words is very convenient when there is no enough space for long words in doors or elsewhere. For example of these common abbreviations in medicine, Dr. – doctor, ED – emergency department, Wt – weight, DOB – date of birth, H2O – water, IQ – intelligence quotient, q1h – every an hour, q2h – every 2 hours.
An initialism is another type of abbreviation similar to an acronym but not exactly the same. Initialisms also use the first letter of each word in the phrase, but instead of combining the letters to form a new word, like with “NASA,” you pronounce each letter individually. Here are some examples:

VIP, which stands for “very important person”

DVD, which stands for “digital versatile disc”
ATM, which stands for “automatic teller machine”
AM and PM, which stand for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem”
RSVP, which stands for “répondez s’il vous plait“.
Initialisms 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, For example. J.V. joint-venture. When they are used for some duration of time they acquire the shortened form of pronouncing and become closer to lexical abbreviations, For example. BBC is as a rule pronounced in the shortened form. In some cases the translation of initial isms is next to impossible without using special dictionaries. Initialisms are denoted in different ways. Very often they are expressed in the way they are pronounced in the language of their origin. For example, ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks).
There are three types of initialisms in English:
a) initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK, BUP, CND etc
b) initialisms which are read as if they are words, For example. UNESCO, UNO, NATO etc.
c) initialisms which coincide with English words in their sound form, such
initialisms are called acronyms, For example. CLASS (Computor-based
Laboratory for Automated School System). Some initialisms can form new words in which they act as root morphemes by different ways of wordbuilding:
a) affixation, For example. A W ALism, ex-rafer, ex- POW, AIDSophobia etc.
b) conversion, For example. to raff, to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules),
c) composition, For example. STOLport, VSAFman etc.
d) 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. For example, A-bomb, V-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, For example. Three -Ds (Three dimensions)boratory for Automated School System).

Acronyms are the vocabulary units spoken as words and made by means of abbreviation, e.g. NATO [neitou], ASAP [asap] – as soon as possible, 2day – today, IDK – I don’t know. The purpose of using acronyms is to save time and space – reducing phrases to a collection of letters far easier and quicker to say and understand – but they have also turned into something of a fashion statement among the younger generation. Newer acronyms are written with capital letters:
Jodie’s got her SATs next week – she’s a bit nervous.
Where the acronym has existed for a long time and become fully established in the language, it is written with small letters (or with one capital letter if it is at the beginning of a sentence):
The ship’s radar had been destroyed in battle.
Radar was one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century.
We went scuba-diving in Australia.
Some acronyms are pronounced as a combination of letters and syllables:
She sent me a jpeg file with a photo of her wedding. (joint photographic experts group /ˈdʒeɪpeg/)
You can buy the dictionary on CD-ROM. (compact disc read-only memory; pronounced /si: di: ˈrɒm/)
We use some acronyms in the plural or possessive:
Are the pictures on your memory stick jpegs or bitmaps?
NATO’s foreign policy has been criticised recently.
Business acronyms are shortened versions of words and phrases used to convey meaning in a business or professional message or correspondence. Business acronyms can make it easy to send quick messages between colleagues and can help streamline communications in the office. CEO – Chief Executive Officer, B2B – business to business, IAM – in a meeting are the good examples of how acronyms can be understandable and time-saver.
Clippings.
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 than the spoken, form of an existing word or phrase. Clipping is also different from back-formation, which proceeds by (pseudo) morpheme rather than segment, and where the new word may differ in sense and word class from its source. Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from their full forms. Some are no longer felt to be clippings, e.g. pants (cf. pantaloons), bus (cf. omnibus), bike (cf. bicycle), etc. Some of them retain rather close semantic ties with the original word. This gives ground to doubt whether the clipped words should be considered separate words. Some linguists hold the view that in case semantic dissociation is slight and the major difference lies in the emotive charge and stylistic application the two units should be regarded as word-variants (e.g. exam and examination, lab and laboratory, etc.).1
Clipping often accompanies other ways of shortening such as substantivisation, e.g. perm (from permanent wave), op (from optical art), pop (from popular music, art, singer, etc.), etc.
Once a clipped form has become lexicalized as such, it can adopt all the properties of the full form, such as tense for the verb, plural marker for the noun, etc. For instance, gym, fridge and phone can be pluralized: gyms, fridges and phones. The noun disrespect has been clipped into diss, but cannot really be pluralized because of its use as an uncountable noun. It has nonetheless given way to the clipped verb diss following a conversion/functional shift process, and it is possible to say: Stop dissing me!
Another characteristic feature of clipping is that once a word has been clipped, it can become completely autonomous and be combined with other word-formation processes. An example borrowed from Bauer [1993: 176] is commitology, “the study of committees”. Let me give purely discursive creations, showing the infinite morpho-lexical creativity of English. The following two examples have been borrowed from the American situation comedy – I mean “sitcom” – How I Met Your Mother:
These swords represent our brohood.