ABBREVIATION or SHORTENING is the way of word-building

ABBREVIATION or SHORTENING is the way of word-building consisting in abbreviating (shortening) of words and word-groups. The results of this process are abbreviations (etc ← et cetera; FBI ← Federal Bureau of Investigation; COD ← Concise Oxford Dictionary; fax ← facsimile, etc.), blends (Medicare ← medical care) and ellipses (pub ← public house).

ABBREVIATIONS Graphical ab-s are the result of shortening only in written speech: Mon ← Monday; Alas ← Alaska, sgt ← sergeant; Mr ← Mister; mph ← miles per hour. Lexical ab-s (clippings) are the product of clipping a part of words: burger, pro, to tab, comfy, maths, etc.

Graphical abbreviations are used for the economy of space and effort, and reading of some of them depends on the context, for example, m can be read as: male, married, metre, mile, minute. Abbreviation doesn’t change the part-of-speech meaning: lab ← laboratory. The new lexical unit differs either in lexical meaning (fence ← defence) or style (prof ← professor).

Mostly the end of the word is clipped: condo ← condominium, expo ← exposition, pro ← professional. In other cases the beginning of the word is clipped: chute ← parachute, thuse ← enthuse, van ← caravan. Sometimes the middle of the word is clipped: mart ← market, specs ←spectacles. There are also cases of combination of clippings: tec ← detective, van ← avanguard, flu ← influenza. Shortening can influence the spelling of words: coke ← coca-cola, bike ← bicycle, mike ← microphone.

Initial abbreviations represent the bordering case between graphical and lexical abbreviations: JV ← joint venture; UNESCO ← United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization; NOW ← National Organization of Women. There are three types of initial abbreviations in English:

a) IA with alphabetical reading such as USA ← United States of America; RF ← Russian Federation; RP ← Received Pronunciation; b) IA read as words (acronyms): OPEC ← Oil Producing European Countries; DINKY ← Double Income, No Kids Yet; c) IA coinciding with English words in their sound form: CAT ← Computer- Assisted Training; PET ← Preliminary English Test. Some linguists unite group b) and c) into one and call them acronyms.

Blending Blends (fusions, telescopic words) are words formed from parts of two already existing items, usually the first part of one and the final part of the other : bit ← binary digit; chunnel ← channel + tunnel; brunch ← breakfast + lunch; infomercial ← information + commercial slanguage ← slang + language.

Sometimes a word is formed by a process that is on the borderline between compounding and blending. It combines all of one word with part of another: workaholic, medicare, Eurotunnel, slanguage, guesstimate. According to other opinion, in blends two ways of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. It means putting together shortened words: Adidas ← Adi + Dassler; acromania ← acronym + mania. Ellipsis represents a way of word formation consisting in omission of the second element of a word combination: documentary ← documentary film.