I bring to your attention that CCM Ivanov V. V. got into an accident. Upon the arrival of the traffic police inspector, a protocol was drawn up in which Ivanov said that he was in a hurry to see his wife at the maternity hospital, therefore, in his BelAZ, he exceeded the speed limit in the center city, after which he paid the fine, wrote an SMS to his wife and calmed down. Do you understand everything? Most likely, yes, because this example uses fairly simple abbreviations. But they are completely different.
Let's look into this issue, and at the same time decipher them - in the course of clarifying the rules and varieties of abbreviations.
Abbreviation - what is it?
The word came to us from the Italian language, but it is derived from the Latin brevis - short. That is, we can say that an abbreviation is an abbreviation of a word or phrase. People began to shorten words and phrases for a very long time. After all, it is much faster and more convenient to use the language.
No wonder we got an "abbreviation" from the Italians, with their temperament there is no time to pronounce every word in combination, especiallythat it always occurs in the same composition! The abbreviation is pronounced on average five times (!) faster than the original expression, and it is probably written 10-15 times faster.
Abbreviations have become widespread in Russia with the development of the media. It was even beneficial. For example, when you advertise in a newspaper or on television, you pay for each sign (letter). In this case, it will be cheaper to advertise exercise therapy than physical therapy. Much cheaper!
Types of abbreviations
So, there are compound words and initial abbreviations.
Compound abbreviation - what is it? It is obtained from the addition of the initial syllables in the phrase, it is also called sometimes - syllabic.
You can simply add the initial syllables in words: state farm - joint farm.
You can take only the beginning from one word, and the second - entirely, as in our example, maternity hospital - maternity hospital. Often the same as in the previous example occurs, but the noun is in the indirect case: commanders - company commander. And you can add different parts of words, initial and final, a destroyer is a destroyer.
And what are initial abbreviations? What is formed by adding the initial letters or sounds of a word. They are divided into three types.
- Letter. In them, the abbreviation is formed strictly from the initial letters in combination, and these letters are read (pronounced) as in the alphabet: road accident (de-te-pe) - roadtraffic accident. Sometimes the reading (pronunciation) of one or more letters may differ from the alphabetic one: exercise therapy (el-fe-ka) - therapeutic physical culture.
- Sound. In them, combinations of letters are read as one word: university (not ve-u-ze) - a higher educational institution.
- Alphabetic-sound, respectively, formed by a combination of letters and sounds: traffic police (gi-be-de-de) - the state inspection of road safety.
There are mixed abbreviations: BelAZ - Belarusian Automobile Plant.
And tautological, which are stable expressions that combine an abbreviation and the word - SMS.
How to decipher the abbreviation
We now know that an abbreviation is what is obtained from the reduction of expressions according to different principles and rules. But abbreviations are also divided by social use.
They are generally accepted, we often know their meanings from childhood, but we cannot decipher them correctly. But the special abbreviation is what? Such abbreviations are formed in any branch of science, activity, knowledge, they are most often understood only by people directly working here. An individual abbreviation (IA) can be known to a certain number of people or be present in only one test, then its description should be present at the beginning of it.
To understand what an abbreviation means, you can refer to the reference book, because they are general and highly specialized, for example, a medical reference book of abbreviations or a reference book of foreign abbreviations. Although sometimesonly a personal acquaintance with its creator will help to find out the true meaning of the abbreviation.
