Definition and Examples of Abbreviations in English

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase, such as Jan. for January. The abbreviated form of the word abbreviation is  abbr. — or, less commonly, abbrv. or abbrev. In American English, many abbreviations are followed by a period (Dr., Ms.). In contrast, British usage generally favors omitting the period (or full stop) in abbreviations that include the first and last letters of a single word (Dr, Ms). When an abbreviation appears at the end of a sentence, a single period serves both to mark the abbreviation and to close the sentence. Linguist David Crystal notes that abbreviations are a major component of the English writing system, not a marginal feature. The largest dictionaries of abbreviations contain well over half a million entries, and their number is increasing all the time (Spell It Out, 2014). Here are some common examples of variousl types of abbreviations: AcronymBackronymCommonly Confused Latin Abbreviations in EnglishCommon Revision Symbols and AbbreviationsCommon Scholarly AbbreviationsE.g. and I.e.Etc. and Et al.InitialeseInitialismLogograph Etymology Abbreviation comes from the Latin word brevis meaning short. Examples and Observations In general, spell out the names of government bureaus and agencies, well-known organizations, companies, etc., on first reference. In later references, use short forms like the agency or the company when possible because handfuls of initials make for mottled typography and choppy prose.Abbreviations may be ironic, humorous, or whimsical: for example, the rail link between the town of Bedford and the London station of St. Pancras is locally known as the Bedpan Line; a comparable link for Boston, New York, and Washington is the Bosnywash circuit. Comments on life may be telescoped into such sardonic packages as: BOGSAT a Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around a Table (making decisions about other people); GOMER Get Out of My Emergency Room (said by physicians to hypochondriacs); MMMBA Miles and Miles of Bloody Africa (an in-group term among people who have to travel those miles); TGIF Thank God Its Friday (after a particularly hard working week).AbbrevesToday, the fave (for favorite’) abb reves are obvi (a shortening of Thank you, Captain Obvious’) and belig (a clipping of belligerent, retaining the soft g). Nobody in the young-barflies crowd orders the usual’; it’s the yoozh. My grandnephew Jesse concludes sentences with whatev, which is probs (for probably’) whatever. In this cacophony of abbreves, word endings are scattered all over the floor. Go fig.Tote-SpeakYou see it on Twitter a lot, people exclaiming about their  totes  delish spags  or their  totes  redic boyfs. Linguists Lauren Spradlin and Taylor Jones call this  practice totesing — the systematic abbreviation (abbreviash) of words to effect a certain tone.  The fad  might have started with totally becoming  totes,  but at this point, no entry in the English lexicon  is safe.Twitter SpeakThe following are some  real words  produced by real human beings on Twitter:Totes tradge  (tragic):  David Bowie dying is totes tradge.Bluebs  (blueberri es):  Bluebs in yog  are my favorite snack.Totes  emosh  (emotional): When Cookie hugged Jamal it made me  totes emosh.iPh  (iPhone): OMG I dropped my iPh!If you’re not a millennial — and even if you are — you might think totesing  is  atrosh  and  unprofesh.  But get used to it.  Though no one is quite sure where it came from, this way of  speaking has been around for well over a decade.LogogramsLogograms . . . play a part in the English writing system: these are cases where a word is not just shortened, but entirely replaced with a symbol. Examples include for at,  Ã‚ £ for pound, % for per cent, and for plus. The ampersand, , is one of the oldest. It is a collapsed version of the Latin word et, and: the bottom circle is whats left of the e, and the rising tail on the right is whats left of the t. Numerals are another kind that we read as 1, 2, 3, etc. as one, two, three... And it is part of the business of learning to read and wr ite to know when we should write words in their logographic form and when to spell them out. Sources A. Siegal,  The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 1999 Tom McArthur,  The Oxford Companion to the English Language, 1992 William Safire, Abbreve  That Template.  The New York Times Magazine, May 21, 2009 Jeff Guo, The Totes  Amazesh  Way Millennials Are Changing the English Language.  The Washington Post, January 13, 2016 David Crystal,  Spell It Out. Picador, 2014