Further on the categories

Some of these abbreviation categories have been talked about more widely in literature than others, with varying definitions on what belongs to which category. Harley (2006: 96) sees Initialisms as

“extreme clipping; using the initial letters of the content word in a phrase to stand in for the whole phrase”. She claims this method has been used to create words in English for some time now, some Initialisms such as C.O.D (“cash/cost/collect on delivery”) originating already in the 1800s, but it has only really taken off as a means of word-formation in the latter half of the 20^th century. According to Harley, Initialisms also has two subgroups: Acronyms which are Initialisms that are pronounced as a united phonological word “according to the spelling conventions of English”, such as in the case of AIDS (“Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”), and Abbreviations where “the letters are read one at a time”, such as in the case of MS (“Multiple Sclerosis”). This same split is used between Initialisms and Acronyms by Mattiello, her using the term Initialisms to replace Abbreviations here (2013: 83).

Mair (2006: 61) has used these same terms as Mattielo, although he later also seems to include more Clipping-like words (such as quango for “quasi non-government(al) organization”) into the category of Acronyms. However, there are also borderline cases which can accept both ways of pronouncing (Mattiello 2013: 83). This is sometimes determined by the use of dots or capital letters (ASAP or a.s.a.p) (Mattiello 2013: 84). However, this split was not taken into account with this particular study,

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especially since Harley (2006: 97) seems to be mostly concerned with official terms as Initialisms, such as names of organisations, rather than as parts of youth speech and chat.

Mattiello (2013: 87–89) places Initialisms further into six other categories. Firstly, there are Non-elliptic acronyms which “retain the initial letters of all the words contained in the source phrase”.

These include FAQ (“frequently asked questions”) and Wysiwyg (“what you see is what you get”).

Secondly, there are Elliptic acronyms, which “do not retain all the initials of the words contained in the source phrase”. Usually the words whose initial letters are omitted are grammatical terms, such as with NASA (“National Aeronautics and Space Administration”). Thirdly, there are Initialisms where a vowel is actually inserted, such as with WREN (“Women’s Royal Naval Service”), although these do not occur frequently and are generally inserted to ease pronunciation. Then there are Extended acronyms where more than one initial letter is taken from at least some of the words to create an Initialism, such as in the case of AMESLAN (“American Sign Language”). Fifthly, there are Recursive acronyms, where one of the source words of the Initialism in question actually responds to what the initial letters end up spelling, such as with CAVE (“cave automatic virtual environment”).

Finally, sixthly come Inverted letter acronyms, where the order of some of the letters used has been changed, such as with MISHAP (“Missiles High-Speed Assembly Program”), where the s and the h have switched places for the reasons of pronounceability and homophony. According to Mattiello, this is, however, the rarest pattern for Initialisms (2013: 89).

Further, as additional category types there are the kinds of Initialisms which are unintentionally arranged so that they are identical to an existing word. She calls them Semantically-irrelevant acrostics. This category includes such Initialisms as BOAT (“Byway open to all traffic”). The category also has a partner, Semantically-relevant acrostics, where the arrangement is intentionally

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made to resemble an existing word, connecting the meaning of the word the Initialism resembles to what the aims of the organisation are, such as with AID (“Agency for International Development”).

According to Mattiello (2013: 91–92), there are also two categories for the non-spelled Initialisms.

First of these is Non-elliptic initialisms, where none of the letters of the original source phrase are deleted from the Initialism version of it, such as in the case of aka (“also known as”) and DIY (“do it yourself”). Its pair and opposite is naturally Elliptic Initialisms in which some of the letters of the original phrase are not retained in the Initialism abbreviation, such as in the case of FBI (“Federal Bureau of Investigation”).

In addition to Initialisms, Harley (2006: 95) has stated that Clippings are words where monosyllabic words are “reduced in size, usually to one or two syllables”. Mattiello (2013: 28) also mentions that English Clippings are generally monosyllabic, or if they are disyllabic, it is likely due to the use of -ie/-y or -o suffixes (“communist” becoming commie), which also came up in the current study’s data.

Often such words become common parts of language as people realise they no longer need to use the full original term to be understood. Clippings usually retain those syllables of the original word that bear the main stress. Some common Clippings are, for instance fridge (from “refrigerator”) and mike (or mic) (from “microphone”). According to Mattiello (2013: 13), Clippings also usually retain more of their source words than Initialisms, making them generally more transparent. Clippings can lose their ends (dem for “democrat”), beginnings (phone from “telephone”), both (fridge for

“refrigerator”) or even the middle (breathalyser from “breath analyser”) (Mattielo 2013: 37, 60), and they can be classified according to this and whether or not a suffix is added (Mattiello 2013: 70).

Clipping usually does not contain semantic change (Mattiello 2013: 68), and only changes the style of the text where it is used (Mattiello 2013: 68–69). Following the thoughts of Plag (2003: 128), Mattiello agrees that Clipped words gain a “pragmatic meaning, expressing a particular attitude of the speaker”, by which they mark the register of the discourse in question more informal (Mattiello

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2013: 69). According to Adams (Mattiello 2013: 69) “Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from their full forms. For instance, pants, short for “pantaloons”, is no longer thought of as a Clipping, because its longer form has ceased to be used. Clippings tend to be mostly nominal in nature, but can also include other word classes such as adjectives (fave for “favourite”) and conjunctions (‘cos for “because”).

Mattiello (2013:86) also discusses abbreviations that I have viewed as Bieswanger’s Letter/number homophones as overlapping with the Initialisms subcategory of acronyms. In this category, as in Letter/number homophones, a syllable of the word is replaced by either a letter or a number that is homophonous to the sound that is needed for the word, for example B4 (“before) and gr8 (“great”).

Mattiello (2013: 87) calls them graphic abbreviations “that do not coincide with an actual reduction in phonetic realisation”. In addition, Mattiello (2013: 13) actually places H standing for “heroin” in the Clippings category whereas I would place it in the Word-value characters category. Seeing as Word-value characters as a category is not used very often, it is worth wondering if it should simply be assimilated to Clippings, as many of its abbreviations are indeed types of Clippings (with f standing for “female”). However, for the purposes of this study, Clippings and Word-value characters are still treated as separate categories in light of such markers as & (“and”), which is not a letter of a word, but rather a character as the category states.