Contents introduction chapter I. Word formation in modern englsh

Contraction. A contraction is a word or phrase that has been shortened by dropping one or more letters. In writing, an apostrophe is used to indicate the place of the missing letters. Contractions are commonly used in speech (or written dialogue), informal forms of writing, and where space is at a premium, such as in advertising. In casual conversation, contractions involving nouns are fairly common ("My dad'll be home soon"). In writing, however, they're much rarer than contractions with pronouns such as I'll, he'd, and she's. You can contract proper nouns to mean is or has, such as in the sentence "Shelly's coming with us," or "Jeff's bought a new computer." Watch out for the homonyms who's and whose; the contraction is "who is" or "who has," and the whole word is possessive, as in "Whose car is that?"

Common contractions in English
aren’t – are not	I’m – I am	that’s – that is
can’t – can not	I’ve – I have	there’s – there is
didn’t – did not	isn’t- is not	we’re – we are
don’t – do not	let’s – let us	what’s – what is

Shortenings have been widely used in medicine to prepare documents and clinical practice. Using shortenings is the way to improve the speed of note-taking and simplify patient notes to make it easy to understand. But, we should also consider that using shortenings may be confusing and increase mistakes, misunderstandings. Making patient records clear, understandable is the responsibility of clinician’s. Shortenings can only used correctly when this correct expanded form is pointed in the Standard English. When clinicians state shortenings clearly on the notes, then clarification would be existed by preventing confusion of the word. According to experiment and the fact of the study at one surgical hospital, the most common place for an abbreviation to be used was in the admission clerking. This occurred in 73% (78 of 107) of the notes analysed. The least likely place for an abbreviation to be found was in the consent form. In 54% (58 of 107) of the post take ward round notes abbreviations were noted. In 33% (35 of 107) of the consent forms and in 36% (38 of 107) of the operation notes were abbreviations detected. This is likely to have been affected by the different members of the clinical team who write in the clinical notes at each of these stages. The admission clerking was completed by senior house officers in 100% (107 of 107) of the cases. However the theatre operation notes which were compiled by registrars or consultants in 97% (104 of 107) of cases. These notes were found to have abbreviations in 44% (41 of 107) of their notes.¹¹

The most commonly used abbreviation in the preadmission clerking was NOF (neck of femur). In the post take ward round notes the most commonly used abbreviation was NBM (nil by mouth). In the consent forms the most commonly used abbreviation was DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and PE (pulmonary embolism). In the operative notes the signs L (left) and R (right) were frequently noted. Other shortened forms frequently noted included SOB (short of breath), ORIF (open reduction internal fixation), NG (nasogastric) and # (fracture).
Nowadays, the number of hospitals and patients are much more than in the past, and clinicians or doctorstry to use shorter shifts. The need for using shortened words is being even greater day by day. The General Medical Council good practice guidelines stated that “ Good records do more than support good patient care; they are essential to it”. However, overusing the shortenings can lead to misunderstandings and permanent errors in patient management.
At local hospital, some researchers collected information how many each type of shortenings were used in 2015. According to the statistics, the result was shown as a chart below: