Practical part

"justify">     The group we have opposed to the curtailed forms of words is based on clipped phrases, chiefly set expressions. These differ severable from word clippings as they result from a combined effect of curtailment, ellipsis and substantiation.

     E11ipsis is defined as the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness but not for the conveyance of the intended lexical meaning, as in the following example: Police summonses are being served in an effort to stop the big sit down planned for September 17 ("Daily Worker"), where sit-down stands for sit down demonstration, S. Ullmann following Broal emphasizes the social causes for these. Professional and other communities with a specialized sphere of common interests are the ideal setting for ellipsis. Open on for open fire on, and put to sea for put ship to sea are of wartime and navy origin, and bill for bill of exchange comes from business circles; in a newspaper office daily paper and weekly paper were quite naturally shortened to daily and weekly. It is clear from the above examples that unlike other types of shortening, ellipsis always results in a change of lexico-gravimetrical meaning, and therefore the new word belongs to a different part of speech. Various other processes are often interwoven with ellipsis. For instance: finals for final examinations are a case of ellipsis combined with substantiation of the first element, whereas prelims for preliminary examinations results from ellipsis, substantivation and clipping. Cf. also modes (from Modern jazz). Other examples of the same complex type are perm :: permanent wave, pop :: popular music,2 prom :: promenade concert, i. e. a concert at which at least part of the audience is not seated and can walk about, pub :: public house —an inn or tavern, taxi :: taxi-cab, itself formed from taximeter-cab. Inside this group a subgroup with prefixed derivatives as first elements of prototype phrases can do distinguished, e. g. co-ed 'a girl student at a co-educational institution', co-op 'co-operative store or society', non-com 'a noncommissioned officer', prefab 'a prefabricated house or structure'; to prefabricate means 'to manufacture component parts of buildings prior to their assembly on a site'.

     It has already been mentioned that curtailed words from compounds are few; cases of curtailment combined with composition set off against phrasal prototypes are slightly more numerous, e. g. ad-lib v 'to speak without notes or preparation' from the Latin phrase add labium meaning 'at pleasure'; sub chaser n from submarine chaser. A curious derivational compound with a clipping for one of its stems is the word teen-ager 'a person between 13 and 19', i. e. 'a person in his or her teens'. The-jocular and ironical name Lib-Labs (Liberal and Labor Party members) illustrates clipping, composition and ellipsis and imitation of reduplication all in one word.

     Among these formations there is a specific group that has attracted special attention of several authors and was even given several different names: blends, bleu dings, fusions airport an tea words. The last term is due to Lewis Carroll, the author of "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". One of the most linguistically conscious writers, he made a special technique of using blends coined by himself, such as chortle v < chuckle + snort, missy adj < miserable -j- flimsy, galumph v < gallop -j- triumph, slither adj < slimy -\- lithe.1 Humpty Dumpy explaining these words to Alice says: "You see it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word." The process of formation is also called telescoping because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope.

     Compare also snob which may have been originally an abbreviation for sine nobilities, written after a name in the registry of fashionable English schools to indicate that the bearer of the name did not belong to nobility. One of the most recent examples is bit, the fundamental unit of information, which is short for binary digit.

     The analysis into immediate constituents is helpful in so far as it permits the definition of a blend as a word with the first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent by a stem of which the initial part is missing. The second constituent when used in a series of similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix on is, for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon, salon, formed from the final element of cotton.

     Depending upon the prototype phrases with which they can be correlated two types of blends can be distinguished. One may be termed additive, the second restrictive. Both involve the sliding together not only of sound but of meaning as well. Yet the semantic relations who are at work are different. The first, i.e. additive type is transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete stems combined by the conjunction and: e.g. smog < smoke and fog 'a mixture of smoke and fog1. The element may be synonymous, belong to the same semantic field or at least "be members of the same lexico-grammatical class of words: (smoke) + (fog) > smog; cf. also a new coinage amaze [ smog + haze: A Weath er Bureau official described the condition as a kind of smog-like haze. "Call it amaze," he said.1 Pakistan was made up of elements taken from the names of the five western provinces: the initials of Panjab, Afghanis, Kashmir, and Singh, and the final part of Baluchistan. Other examples are: brunch breakfast and lunch; transceiver transmitter and receiver, Niffles - Niagara Falls.

     The restrictive type is transformable into an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as modifier of the second: cinematographic panorama Cinerama. Other examples are: positron < positive electron; telecast < television broadcast. An interesting variation of the same type is presented by cases of superposition, formed by pairs of words having similar clusters of sounds, which seem to provoke blending, e.g. a motel < motorists' hotel: the element -ot- is present in both parts of the prototype. Further examples are: shampoo < sham bamboo (imitation bamboo); egomaniac < atom maniac; language<slang + language, warphan - war orphan. Blends, although not very numerous altogether, seem to be on the rise, especially in terminology and also in trade advertisements.

     Curtailed words arise in various types of colloquial speech, and have for the most part a pronounced stylistic coloring as long as their connection with the prototype is alive, so that they remain synonyms. When the connection with the prototype is lost, the curtailed word may become stylistically neutral: e. g. brig, cab, cello, and pram. Stylistically colored shortened words may belong to any variety of colloquial style. They are especially numerous in various branches of slang: school slang, service slang, sport slang, newspaper slang, etc. Familiar colloquial style gives such examples as bobby, cabbie, mac, and max from maximum, movies. Nursery words are often clipped: grand, granny, hanky from handkerchief, ma, nigh tie from nightdress, pinkie from pinafore. Stylistic peculiarity often goes hand in hand with emotional coloring as is revealed in the above diminutives. School and college slang, on the other hand, reveal some sort of reckless if not ironical attitude to the things named: caf from cafeteria 'self-service restaurant', digs from diggings 'lodgings', ec, eco from economics, home ecs, lab, math’s, prelims, prep, prof, trig, undergrad, vac, varsity. Service slang is very rich in clipped words; some of them penetrate the familiar colloquial style. A few examples are: demob from demobilize, divvy n from civilian, op n from operator, non-com n from non-combatant, corps n from corporal, serge n from sergeant.

     The only types of clippings that belong to bookish style are the poetical contractions, such as e'en, e'er, ne'er, o'er 

     2.2 GRAPHICAL ABBREVIATIONS. ACRONYMS 

     Because of the ever closer connection between the oral and the written forms of the language it is sometimes difficult to differentiate clippings coined in oral speech from graphical abbreviations. The latter often pass into oral speech and become widely used in conversation.

     During World War I and later the custom became very popular not only in English-speaking countries, but in other parts of the world as well, to call countries, governmental, social, military, industrial and trade organizations and officials not by their full titles but by initial abbreviations derived from writing: the USSR, the U. N., the U. N. O. Such words formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term are called acronyms. Two possible types of orthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms should be noted:

     1. If the abbreviated written form can be read as though it were an ordinary English word it will be read like one. Many examples are furnished by political and technical vocabulary. U. N. E. S. C. O., also Unesco [ju:'neskou] — United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization', U. N. O., also Una ['ju:nou] — United Nations Organization; U. N. R. R. A., also Unrra [an'ra:] — United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, etc. A few recent technical terms may also be mentioned to illustrate this type such as jato, laser, maser and a more than twenty years old radar. JATO or jato means' jet-assisted take-off. Laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission radiation; maser for micro-wave amplification and stimulated emission radiation; l radar for radio detection and ranging denotes a system for ascertaining direction and ranging of aircraft, ships, coasts and other objects by means of the electro-magnetic waves which they reflect. One more military term might be added: sten fgun) as the name for a light weight machine gun derived from the initials of the inventors' surnames, Shepherd and Turpin + -en for England. Words belonging to this group are often isolated from the prototypes.

     2. The opposite subgroup consists of initial abbreviations with the alphabetic reading retained. They also retain correlation with prototypes. The examples are well-known: B. B. C. ['bi:'bi:'si:] — the British Broadcasting Corporation; G. I. ['djii'aij — for Government Issue, a widely spread metonymical name for American soldiers on the items of whose uniforms these letters are stamped. The last abbreviation was originally an Americanism but has been firmly established in British English as well. M. P. ['em 'pi:] is mostly used as an initial abbreviation for Member of Parliament, also military police, whereas P. M. stands for Prime Minister. These abbreviations are freely used in colloquial speech as seen from the following extract, in which C. P. Snow describes the House of Commons gossip: They were swapping promises to speak for one another: one was bragging how two senior Ministers were "in the bag" to speak for him. Rigger was safe, someone said, he'd give a hand. "What has the P. M. got in mind for Roger when we come back?" The familiar colloquial quality of the context is very definitely marked by the set expressions: in the bag, give a hand, get in mind, etc.

     Other examples of initial abbreviations with the alphabetical reading retained are: S.O.S. ['es 'ou 'es] — Save Our Souls, a wireless code-signal of extreme distress, also figuratively, any despairing cry for help; T . V '. Or TV ['ti: 'vi:l — television; Y. C. L. ['wai 'si: 'el] — the Young Communist League. The names of English letters seem to favor this type of abbreviation.

     The term abbreviation may be also used for a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole, for economy of space and effort. Abbreviation is achieved by omission of letters from one or more parts of the whole, as for instance abr. for abbreviation, bldg for building, govt for government, cdr. for commander, doz or dz for dozen, ltd for limited, B. A. for Bachelor of Arts, N. Y. for New York State. Sometimes the part or parts retained show some alteration, thus oz denotes ounce and Xmas denotes Christmas. Doubling of initial letters shows plural forms as for instance pp for pages, U for lines or cc for chapters. These are in fact not separate words but only graphic signs or symbols representing them. Consequently no orthopedic correlation exists in such cases and the unabbreviated word is pronounced: // [lainz], pp.

     A specific type of abbreviations having no parallel in Russian is represented by Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents. A few of the most important cases are listed below: ad lib (Lat ad libitum) — at pleasure; a. m. (Lat ante meridian) — in the morning; cf. (Lat conferre) — compare; cp. (Lat comparer) — compare; e. g. (Lat exempli gratia) — for example; ib (id) (Lat ibidem) — in the same place; i.e. (Lat id est) — that is; loc. cit. (Lat locus citato) -in the passage cited; ob. (Lat obiit) — he (she) died; q. v. (Lat quod vide) — which see; p. m. (Lat post meridiem) — in the afternoon; viz (Lat videlicet) — namely An interesting feature of present-day English is the use of initial abbreviations for famous persons' names and surnames. Thus George Bernard Shaw is often alluded to as G. B. S. I'dji; 'bi: 'esf Herbert George Wells as H. G. The usage is clear from the following example: "Oh, yes ... where was I?" ''With H. G.'s Martians," I told him. (WYNDHAM)

     Journalistic abbreviations are often occasioned by a desire to economize head-line space, as seen from the following example-"CND Calls Lobby to Stop MLF" ("Daily Worker"). This means that a mass lobby of Parliament against the Nato multilateral nuclear force (MLF) is being called by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

     These regular developments are in some cases combined with occasional jocular or accidental distortions. The National Economic Development Council is facetiously termed Needy. Elementary education is colloquially referred to as the three R's — reading, writing and Vithmetic. Some kind of witty folk etymology is at play when the abbreviation C. B. for construction battalions in the navy is respect into sea bees. The two well-known Americanisms jeep and okay may be mentioned in this connection. Jeep meaning 'a small military motor vehicle' comes from g. p. ['dgi: 'pi:j (the initials of general purpose). Okay may be an illiterate misinterpretation of the initials in all correct. Various other historical anecdotes have been also offered by way of explanation of the latter.

     It must be emphasized that initial abbreviation, no less than other types of shortening, retains the valiancy, i. e. the combining possibilities of the prototypes. The difference in distribution is conditioned only by a change of meaning (lexical or more rarely lexico-grammatical). Abbreviations receive the plural arid Possessive case inflexions: G. I.'s, M. P.'s, P.O. W.'s (from prisoner of war), also the verb paradigm: Okays, okayed, okaying. E. g. 4 hotel's no life for you... Why don't you come and P. G. with me? (A. WILSON) Here P. G. is an acronym for paying guest. Like all nouns they can be used attributively: BBC television, TV program, UN vote.

     A specifically English word pattern absent in the Russian language must be described in connection with initial abbreviations in which the first element is a letter and the second a complete word. The examples are: A-bomb, A-terror, H-accident risk, H-blast, A-sub, If-test, where A stands for atomic or atomic bomb and H for hydrogen bomb. The pronunciation is alphabetic.

     No stylistic or semantic generalization on this type seems possible, the examples being of different types. Alongside the examples of words in H- connected with nuclear weapons, there is the lady's H-bag (for handbag). Compare U standing for upper classes in such combinations as U-pronunciation, U-language (i. e. that of the upper classes). Non-U is its opposite. So Non-U speakers are those whose speech habits show that they do not belong to the upper classes. It will have been noted that all kinds of shortening are very productive in present-day English. They are especially numerous in colloquial speech, both familiar colloquial and professional slang. They display great combining activity and form bases for further word-formation and inflection However Henry Sweet and some other scientists say that these criteria are not characteristic of the majority of such units.

     They consider the first component of such units to be a noun in the function of an attribute because in Modern English almost all parts of speech and even word-groups and sentences can be used in the function of an attribute, e.g. the then president (an adverb), out-of-the-way villages (a word-group), a devil-may-care speed (a sentence).

     There are different semantic relations between the components of «stone wall»  combinations. E.I. Chapnik classified them into the following groups:

     1. time relations, e.g. evening paper,

     2. space relations, e.g. top floor,

     3. relations between the object and the material of which it is made, e.g. steel helmet,

     4. cause relations, e.g. war orphan,

     5. relations between a part and the whole, e.g. a crew member,

     6. relations between the object and an action, e.g. arms production,

     7. relations between the agent and an action e.g. government threat, price rise,

     8. relations between the object and its designation, e.g. reception hall,

     9. the first component denotes the head, organizer of the characterized object, e.g. Clinton government, Forsyte family,

     10. the first component denotes the field of activity of the second component, e.g. language teacher, psychiatry doctor,

     11. comparative relations, e.g. moon face,

     12. qualitative relations, e.g. winter apples. 

     2.3. ABBREVIATIONS AS THE MAJOR TYPE OF SHORTENINGS 

     In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms, initials, blends are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time.

     There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing «fanaticus» is shortened to «fan» on the analogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc.

     There are two main types of shortenings: graphical and lexical.

     Graphical abbreviations

     Graphical abbreviations are the result of shortening of words and word-groups only in written speech while orally the corresponding full forms are used. They are used for the economy of space and effort in writing.

     The oldest group of graphical abbreviations in English is of Latin origin. In Russian this type of abbreviation is not typical. In these abbreviations in the spelling Latin words are shortened, while orally the corresponding English equivalents are pronounced in the full form, e.g. for example (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. - in the morning (ante meridiem), No - number (numero), p.a. - a year (per annum), d - penny (dinarius), Ib - pound (libra), i. e. - that is (id est) etc.

     Some graphical abbreviations of Latin origin have different English equivalents in different contexts, e.g. p.m. can be pronounced «in the afternoon)) (post meridiem) and «after death» (post mortem). -—there are also graphical abbreviations of native origin, where in the spelling we have abbreviations of words and word-groups of the corresponding English equivalents in the full form. We have several semantic groups of them:

     a) days of the week, e.g. Mon - Monday, Tue - Tuesday etc

     b) names of months, e.g. Apr - April, Aug - August etc.

     c) names of counties in UK, e.g. Yorks - Yorkshire, Berks -Berkshire etc

     d) names of states in USA, e.g. Ala - Alabama, Alas - Alaska etc.

     e) names of address, e.g. Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr. etc

     f) military ranks, e.g. capt. -captain, col. - colonel, sgt - sergeant etc.

     g) scientific degrees, e.g. B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, D.M. - Doctor of Medicine . (Sometimes in scientific degrees we have abbreviations of Latin origin, e.g., M.B. - Medicinae Baccalaurus).

     h) units of time, length, weight, e.g. f. / ft -foot/feet, sec. - second, in. -inch, mg. - milligram etc.⁵