Abbreviations Evaluation.docx

Abbreviations “Abbreviation” (or “shortening”) is an umbrella term used in this book to refer to three correlated phenomena: namely, clippings (Jespersen’s 1942: 538 “stump-words”), acronyms, and initialisms. These processes share the same abbreviatory mechanism, obtaining new word-forms by shortening existing lexemes. A clipping is obtained by shortening a (simplex or com-plex) lexeme to one, two or (rarely) three syllables, as in photo (←photo-graph) and pub (←public house). Acronyms and initialisms, grouped to-gether under the label “alphabetisms” in m As observed by Kreidler (2000: 957), “The use of abbreviations goes back to antiquity”; examples are Latin alphabetisms such as INRI and SPQRand Hebrew acronymic personal names, for example Rambam←Rabbi Moses ben Maimon. Yet it is principally in modern times, from the late nine-teenth century onwards, that clippings, acronyms and initialisms have prolif-erated. There are two main reasons for their proliferation. One of these, ac-counting especially for the use of acronyms and initialisms, is the need for a more efficient vocabulary in technical sectors, such as medicine, politics, law, and commerce (see Economy in 7.1). As advances in computer science and technology brought with them a constant stream of new concepts and terms, the practice of abbreviating words (CAE ‘Computer-Aided Engineer-ing’, DOS, HTML, mms) became increasingly convenient. The use of alpha-betisms has been further popularised with the emergence of Short Message Service – itself an initialism (sms) – giving birth to neologisms such as LOL, which stands either for Laughing Out Loud or for Lots Of Love/Luck. The second reason, which affects especially clippings, is the element of familiar-ity or intimacy (see Informality in 7.1; also Mair’s 2006 concept of “colloquialization”). Clipped words are generally used in less formal contexts than their full-length counterparts: words such as auto, gym, lab, pop (←popu-lar music), and prof indicate an attitude of familiarity on the user’s part, either towards the object denoted, or towards the audience (Adams 1973). Many clipped words belong to specific slang, such as tab, a drug-addicts’ term for a tablet (of LSD), frat used by American college students instead of y classification, are obtained by shortening a multi-word sequence (phrase, compound, title, or list) to the initial letters, as in AIDS (←Acq fraternity, or pecs, used among bodybuilders to refer to pectoral muscles(Mattiello 2008a). Others originated as terms of special groups, but then became colloquial language. Examples come from the language of school-mates (maths for mathematics, uni or varsity for university), soldiers (cap for captain, chute for parachute), family members (hubby for husband, sisfor sister, telly for television), doctors and scientists (chemo for chemother-apy, mono for mononucleosis), and teenagers (disco for discotheque, friesfor French frie(d potatoe)s, and pics for pictures, also spelt pix) (see Social or Professional closeness in 7.1). uired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and BBC (←British Broadcasting Corporation).

Although the creation and use of abbreviations has become a more and more widespread phenomenon in English, the abbreviations themselves, as well as the various sub-types – clippings, acronyms, and initialisms – have received relatively little attention in the literature generally, and very little serious consideration in morphological works in particular, at least in com-parison with other word-formation processes. This fact is also demonstrated by the terminological divergences in pertinent scholarship. As we will see, studies probing these phenomena (e.g. Cannon 1989; López Rúa 2002), disagree on terminology, and use one label or another, in somewhat disparate fashion, with confusion as to which is the superordinate and which the sub-ordinate term.Also, the general term “abbreviation” is not unanimously accepted, and “shortening” is often preferred (e.g. by Heller and Macris 1968; Kreidler 1979; Cannon 1989; López Rúa 2002, 2004). I will propose my own taxonomy (Conti and Mattiello 2008; Mattiello 2008a) in the de-scriptive section below (3.1). As discussed in the Introduction, few scholars appear interested in the topic, because these abbreviations seem to be irregular and sporadic as com-pared with canonical affixation and compounding (Kreidler 2000: 959), and this encourages many linguists to exclude them from morphological theory (Aronoff 1976; Scalise 1984; Spencer 1991; Haspelmath 2002), or to mar-ginalise their formation mechanisms as unpredictable processes. The difficult predictability, or even un-predictability, of clippings and ac-ronyms is a recognised fact (Bauer 1983: 233–238). There are no clear word-formation rules by means of which we might predict where a word will be cut. Moreover, especially in acronyms, the input “is treated with a certain amount of freedom” (Bauer 1983: 237), because the output must conform to the phonological canons of English. Haspelmath (2002) even concludes that, although these operations can be used to create new words, they “do not fall under morphology, because the resulting new words do not show systematic meaning-sound resemblances of the sort that speakers would recognize” On the other hand, Plag (2003) observes that restrictions on prosodic categories “constrain both the structure of clippings and their relation to their base words” (p. 121). Hence, he establishes prosodic regularities for clippings as well as for truncated names (Plag 2003: 119–121). For acro-nyms and initialisms, on the other hand, he indicates certain orthographic and phonological properties which allow a systematic analysis of possible patterns, and permit the inclusion of these abbreviation types, together with clippings and blends, within regular word-formation. The fact that abbreviations do not change the denotative meaning of their base words is an indication of their extragrammaticality (2.3.7.8). Indeed, unlike new derivatives and compounds, new words formed by shortening are merely instances of re-naming, giving more efficient labels or a flavour of familiarity to concepts that already have designations. Both Bat-El (2000: 63) and Fradin (2003: 249–250) disagree with this, claiming that acronyms and clippings become more specialised than their bases. This is true for ab-breviations used in specialised domains, but is not generalisable to all cases. Kreidler (2000: 959, after Marchand 1969: 441) further observes that clip-pings may develop autonomously from their source, acquiring a new mean-ing. Examples of this type, as we will see, are limited to a set of cases whose source is forgotten, as in taxi, from taximeter cabriolet. (Sub)regularities as well as irregularities of

acronyms and initialisms have been highlighted in Conti and Mattiello (2008). The clipping process is similarly governed by universal preferences, such as the prosodic preference for a monosyllabic structure ending in a consonant (Kreidler 2000: 960), but it is not morphologically constrained, admitting variant processes and there-fore alternative outputs (2.3.7.2). This is the reason why Jamet (2009), after Plag (2003) and others, tries to formalise the study of clipping by identifying grammatical, morpho(no)logical and semantic restrictions, which are, how-ever, only “tendencies”, rather than “strict golden rules” (Jamet 2009: 30), of the generative type. The extra-grammatical character and irregularity of abbreviations will be discussed in this chapter. Their regularities will also be examined (see Bat-El 2000; Kreidler 2000; Plag 2003; Jamet 2009), and their preferences taken into account, in order to establish whether new clipped words or acronyms can be predicted by applying precise criteria. Although my definition of acronyms and initialisms rules out a number of borderline cases, which will be excluded from my analysis, I still expect alphabetisms to be difficult to predict. It is also likely that clippings and clipped names, or hypocoristics, are random and partially unpredictable, or that they do not always conform to distinctive patterns. Ambiguity between different inputs (sub is either from submarine or from substitute, BA is Bachelor of Arts as well as British Airways, A.W.O.L. originates from Ab-sent WithOut Leave or Absent Without Official Leave) or alternative out-puts (e.g. ad vs. advert, A.W.O.L. spelt as a series of letters or as a word, i.e. awol) are symptomatic of the extra-grammaticality (2.3.7.2–2.3.7.3) and irregularity of abbreviated forms. 3.1. Definition, delimitation, and classification In the literatura on abbreviations, there is a lack of consistency and much vagueness as well as overlapping with respect to what is termed an abbrevia-tion in general, in contrast with what should be regarded, for instance, as a proper clipping, an alphabetism (term which I use as a hyperonym for the following two phenomena), an initialism, or an acronym. The term “abbreviations”, for instance, is not commonly used as the gen-eral label. Cannon (1989: 106), considers as legitimate abbreviations only words which are pronounced by their initial letters, such as D.B.S. (←De Bonis Suis), while López Rúa (2002: 40) reserves this label for a heteroge-neous set of cases which are only used in writing and with a variable degree of shortening (e.g. Dr.←Doctor, Mr←Mister). “Shortening” is, in both studies, the preferred alternative. Furthermore, as Cannon (1989) observes, dictionary practice has been nurturing a general confusion of terms “Since the fifteenth century” (p. 106) by listing as abbreviations not only acronyms and clippings, but also contractions and visual devices. The position of clippings, acronyms, and initialisms within the category of abbreviations is even more controversial, and terminology varies from one author to another. Jespersen (1942: 533–552), for example, under the label “shortenings”, lists “clipped” or “stump-words” such as sec for second, as well as “alphabetic shortenings”, either read letter by letter (M.P. for Mem-ber of Parliament) or read as regular words (Dora for Defence Of Realm Act). Marchand (1969: 452–454) relegates acronymic abbreviations to the process of wordmanufacture,52 distinguishing between “letter-words” (e.g. Eto←European Theater of Operations), “syllable-words” (e.g. sial←silicon + aluminium), and a combination of the two (e.g. radar). Initialisms like YMCA (←Young Men’s Christian Association) are described by means of pronunciation, but they are not labelled or categorised. Bauer (1983: 233–238) takes only clippings, blends, and acronyms into account, thus excluding initialisms of the type USA from his morphological description. Cannon (1989: 99), by contrast, employs the term “initialisms” as a “general rubric for acronyms and abbreviations” (see also Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1632–1633), whereas López Rúa (2002, 2004) considers initialisms as a superordinate category comprising acronyms and alphabetisms. On the other hand, in Adams (1973) and Kreidler (1979, 2000) “acronyms” is a cover term including the other two categories, classified by Kreidler (2000: 957) as “alphabetic, or letter-naming” (e.g. UK) and “orthoepic, or letter-sounding” (e.g. NATO). Like Plag (2003), I classify the first of these as initialisms, reserving the term “acronym” for the orthoepic type. Unlike Plag (2003), however, I include under the heading “clippings” not only clipped common words, such as lab (←laboratory), but also clipped compounds (pub), clipped names or hypocoristics (Mike, Patty), and clippings with suffixes (aggr-o←aggravation, Auss-ie←Australian, champ-ers←champagne). The label “truncations”, often used synonymously with “clippings” (e.g. in Jamet 2009), is reserved in this study to the type in which the final part of a word is dropped, as in the aforementioned lab. Blends, which are generally viewed as a special type of abbreviation and therefore grouped together with the other categories mentioned here,53 will be treated separately in this study, their specificity being the fact that they operate on two or more base words. As this very brief and sporadic exploration of existing nomenclature shows, there are fuzzy borders among the categories considered, and dis-agreement among linguists on a general taxonomy, which is often mentioned as a reason for the lack of a systematic study (Cannon 1989; López Rúa 2004). The next seven sections are devoted to the definition, delimitation and categorisation of these phenomena. 3.1.1. Definition of clipping Clipping is a process which abbreviates a word to one of its parts, with a consequent loss of phonetic material, as in fash (←fashion/fashionable), flu(←influenza), and plane (←airplane/aeroplane). Different definitions underline one aspect or another of the phenomenon, but they often agree that clipping does not involve any semantic change. In Bauer’s (1983: 233) defi nition, for example, clipping is negatively defined as a process without any semantic consequences, but with a change in the stylistic value: Clipping refers to the process whereby a lexeme (simplex or complex) is shortened, while still retaining the same meaning and still being a member of the same form class. Frequently clipping results in a change of stylistic level. Kreidler (2000), who claims that a clipping “is derived from a simple lexeme and consists of one, two, or occasionally three syllables of that word” (p. 956), is more specific on this point. He distinguishes clipped forms that are essentially identical with the source, except for an added fa-miliar connotation (e.g. gym(nasium), ref(eree)), from those that become totally separated from the source (e.g. taxi ‘the vehicle’ ←taximeter ‘device that computes the distance travelled’).54 A third group includes instances that undergo a specification/narrowing process, as in demo, denoting not ‘any demonstration’, but ‘a political display’ (Br.E.) or ‘a demonstration car’ (Am.E.) (also in Jamet 2009). In relation to this, Adams (1973: 136)

observes that “Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from their full forms”: e.g., mob (← Lat. mobile vulgus) and pants (←panta-loons)55 are no longer felt as clippings, because the longer forms are not used, and, similarly, lunch, movie and pram have now superseded their source words/phrases luncheon, moving picture and perambulator. In other words, the new item has become “an unrelated lexical unit” (Marchand 1969: 441). Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) even observe that the ety-mology of some clipped forms is sometimes unrecognisable, as in gin, from Dutch genever ‘spirit obtained from juniper berries’ (cf. folk-etymological association with the name of the city of Geneva) (OED3). Plag (2003: 128) instead states that clippings bring – if not a new meaning – a “social mean-ing” carrying a different connotation from the base lexeme. In a previous publication (Mattiello 2008a: 141), I similarly claim that clipped words acquire a pragmatic meaning, expressing a particular attitude of the speaker and lowering the stylistic level of discourse to less formal speech: this allows the standard word criminal and the slang word crim to co-exist and select different registers.

Katamba (2005) provides a definition related to Bauer’s (1983), but adds a phonological dimension, claiming that clipped words are formed “by lop-ping off a portion and reducing it to a monosyllabic or disyllabic rump” (Katamba 2005: 180). Three syllables are also possible (see Kreidler 2000: 956), generally with clippings from complex words, as in digi cabes (←digital cable), hetero (←heterosexual), intercom (←intercommunication system) (reported by Jamet 2009: 25). López Rúa (2006: 676) also notes that there may be phonological modification in terms of changed or addi-tional vowels or consonants, so that “a different graphic version with occa-sionally spelling adjustments” is obtained, as in bike for bicycle, coke for cocaine, natch for naturally. Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) also add a syntactic dimension, noting that this process applies not only to a single word, but also to a whole phrase or compound, as in glutes (←gluteus maximus), perm (←permanent wave), siggy (←significant other) and zoo (←zoological garden). In this respect, Kreidler’s definition (2000: 956, given above) is more restrictive, in that it confines clipping to the formal shortening of simple lexemes, although he later admits that, semantically, it may derive from a compound or phrase (Kreidler 2000: 962). In relation to the syntactic class of the bases, both Kreidler (2000) and Jamet (2009) underline the predominantly nominal nature of clipped forms, although they observe that other less frequent categories do exist: e.g., adjec-tives (fave←favourite), verbs (prep←prepare), adverbs (inf←infi-nitely), and more rarely, conjunctions (’cos←because) and interjections (lor←lord), the latter two being in any case much less frequent word cate-gories in the language as a whole. In relation to morphotactics, clippings can be classified according to which part of the source remains in the output – the initial, medial, or final portion – and whether any suffix is added (Mattiello 2008a).56 Before offer-ing my own classification based on such morphological criteria, a delimita-tion of the clipping process is in order. 3.1.2. Delimitation: Clipping vs. other processes Although scholars follow different linguistic approaches and provide differ-ing definitions of the clipping process, all definitions are interrelated and oriented towards the same concept. However, this concept is at times conflated with other related but, separate, notions. First of all, the distinction between clipping and back-formation, as dia-chronic processes, is not always clear (Kreidler 1979: 26, 2000: 957). Ac-cording to Bauer (1983: 232) and Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) back-formations like burgle (←burglar), edit (←editor), and peddle (←ped-dler) are to be considered as special cases of clipping.57 On the one hand, they are both kinds of shortening, but on the other hand, they differ from many points of view. First, the material removed in back-formation is more predictable (by analogy) than that removed in clipping, because it normally has the status of a (supposed) morpheme, rather than being material with no morphemic status (Kreidler 1979:

26; cf. Jamet 2009: 17). Second, the re-moved material in back-formation is generally the final part of a word, whereas clipping, as we will see, curtails words in various ways. Third, back-formations always change the grammatical category of the base word (e.g. Noun → Verb, as in baby-sitter→baby-sit, sculptor→sculpt), whereas this is not the case with clippings, which almost always belong to the same word class as the base (e.g. both corp and corporation are nouns, both fess and confess are verbs, etc.).58 Thus, back-formation obtains new words, clipping only connoted variants.59Another necessary distinction is between clipping and the process of el-lipsis. According to Kreidler (2000: 962), clippings derived from compounds or phrases, like pub or typo (←typographical error), are extensions of the process of ellipsis, by which, for instance, a construction of modifier + head is reduced to the modifier, deleting the head, as in capital for capital city, capital letter, etc., general for general servant, and Underground for Un-derground railway. In decaf for decaffeinated coffee and neg for negative photograph part of the modifier is also deleted. These elliptic forms take on the meaning of the source forms, and also their syntactic class, as the plural marker of final-s from final examinations or primar-ies from primary elec-tions demonstrate. Therefore, I consider the above-mentioned words as cases of clipping. I distinguish ellipsis from clipping on the basis of their morpho-logical relevance. Ellipsis is essentially a textual phenomenon (Halliday and Hasan 1976; Beaugrande and Dressler 1981), in that the deep structure is recoverable from context and the omitted material can be generally deter-mined by making reference to the immediate co-text. Clipping, on the other hand, is a morphological phenomenon, and the omitted part is not always unambiguously determined or recovered by means of con-/cotextual infor-mation. The concept of clipping may also be confused with that of blending. This confusion is normally due to the similarity between some clippings derived from complex bases and blends, typically merging two or more bases. As I will explain in more detail in the next chapter (4.1.2), clipped compounds, such as hi-fi (←high fidelity) and adman (←advertising man), differ from blends because their bases have a composite rather than independent mean-ing. The demarcation between the two processes is especially complex not with coordinate blends of the type bilk (←beer + milk) or linner (←lunch+ dinner), whose bases are paradigmatically related, but above all with the attributive type (e.g. blog←web + log), whose bases are syntagmatically related (more in 3.1.3 and 4.1.3). A dubious case is the noun quasar, ana-lysed by Bertinetto (2001: 100) as a blend from quasi and stellar, but actually originating from an adjectival base quasi-stellar having a composite meaning (OED3). A further point with regard to the notion of clipping is that it excludes a series of purely graphic abbreviations, i.e., sequences of letters which, when converted to speech, are pronounced as the source words they abbreviate, like Dr. (←Doctor), ed. (←editor), Mr. (←Mister), or, from a Latin base, etc. (←et cetera). On the other hand, Dem (←Democrat), Inc (←Incor-porated), Jan (←January) are hybrids between clippings and graphic ab-breviations, because they can be read out in expanded or unexpanded form. Lastly, clippings with a high degree of shortening (e.g. c.←century, H.←hydrogen, p.←page) may conflate with acronyms or initialisms of the type FAQ and CD (Conti and Mattiello 2008: 560). Indeed, like them, they are made up of the initial letters of words. Even more blurred is the border between alphabetisms and instances of two or more letters taken from a sin-gle word, as in ADG for adermatoglyphia, ID for identification (as in ID number/card, user ID, or on its own), TB/tb for tuberculosis, TV for televi-sion or, in slang, for transvestite. However, all these abbreviations

have a single word as source form, whereas acronyms and initialisms come from a multiword sequence (Frequently Asked Questions, Compact Disk). As a corollary, short clippings of the type c., H., etc. are highly ambiguous, ad-mitting alternative inputs (e.g. in slang H. means heroin; see 2.3.7.3), and potentially standing for any word beginning with the initial letter retained. By contrast, a combination of letters, as in alphabetisms, leaves a smaller number of options to disambiguation. 3.1.3. Classification and structure of clippings Clippings are commonly classified according to which part of the base is deleted, with distinctions being made between back-clipping, foreclipping, edge-clipping, and mid-clipping. 3.1.3.1. Back-clipping (called “‘hind’ clipping” by López Rúa 2006: 676)60deletes the final part of the word, thus preserving the initial portion. Another appropriate label for this type is “truncation” (cf. Plag 2003 and others who extend the term to the whole variety of clippings). Back-clippings represent the highest percentage in English and other languages, in that the beginning is considered the most salient part of a word (Dressler 2005). This pattern is illustrated by many nouns, either monosyllabic or disyllabic: ad/advert(isement), auto(mobile), bi(sexual), bro(ther), cap(tain), demo(nstration), disco(theque), emo(tional), gym(nasium),61lab(oratory), photo(graph), pic(ture), prof(essor), sis(ter), uni(versity) have already been mentioned. Other examples include: admin (←administration), amp (←amplifier), app (←application, and recently also from appetizer), bra (←brassière), bronc (←bronco), cam (←camera), cig (←cigarette), condo(←condominium), croc (←crocodile), curio (←curiosity), deb (←debu-tante), deli (←delicatessen), dino (←dinosaur), dorm (←dormitory), exam (← (academic) examination), fan (←fanatic), gas (←gasoline), grad (←graduate), homo (←homosexual), mag (←magazine, cf. zinebelow), mayo (←mayonnaise), memo (←memorandum), mimeo (←mimeograph), pen (←penitentiary), porn (←pornography), pres (←president), promo (←promotion), Rasta (←Rastafarian), rehab (←reha-bilitation), sax (←saxophone), stude (←student), talc (←talcum), tech(←technology), teen (←teenager), tick (←ticket), tu (←tuition), U (←University; cf. initialisms in 3.1.4), vamp (←vampire) ‘seductive woman’, zep (←zeppelin). A final -s is kept in binos (←binoculars), celebs (←celebrities), congrats (←congratulations), hols (←holidays), maths (cf. Am.E. math), mocs (←moccasins), specs (←spectacles), at times with a semantic specification, as in pants. Turps (←turpentine) is “embellished” by an -s (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1636). In gents (←gentlemen’s lavatory), the final -s is a residue of the genitive. Back-clipped adjectives and verbs are less frequent: the former are illus-trated by comfy, fab, hyper, imposs, marvy, mizzy, preg, rad, respectively from comfortable, fabulous, hyperactive, impossible, marvellous, miser-able, pregnant, and radical, the latter by frat, prep, psych,62rehab, sum, veg, from fraternize, prepare, psychoanalyse, rehabilitate, summarize, and vegetate (‘pass the time in vacuous inactivity’). Back-clipped adverbs like def(initely) and inf(initely) are rare. Some back-clippings are shortenings of slang rather than standard words (Mattiello 2008a: 143): e.g., boob (←booby ‘a stupid fellow’), fag (←faggot ‘a male homosexual’), Mex (←Mexican ‘foreign currency’), mike(←microgram ‘a microgram of a drug’), mush (←mushroom ‘an um-brella’), nig (←nigger ‘a dark-skinned person’). Others were slang words at their origin, but are no longer considered stylistically marked, due to their frequency of use in everyday language. Examples of this kind are: brill (←brilliant), divi. (←dividend), ma (←mama), meth (←methamphetamine; cf. meth(s) from methylated spirit, OED3), op (←operative/operator ‘a private investigator’; cf. optical in op art), phenom (←phenomenon), pol(←politician), pros/pross (←prostitute), Prot

(←Protestant), stupe (←stupid), teach (←teacher), etc. Against Kreidler’s (1979: 27) claim that “the short form has to resemble its source in some fairly unambiguous way”, sometimes input recognition is obstructed not only by shortening, but also by orthographic change, as in bike, biz (←business), cuke (←cucumber), delish (←delicious), fax (←facsimile), mike (←microphone), pram (←perambulator), slang Jeez (←Jesus), loony/-ey (←lunatic), mensh (←mention), natch, pash (←pas-sion), sarge (←sergeant), and trank (←tranquillizer).63 However, some of these changes (e.g. in delish, natch, pash) were necessary in order to pre-serve the original pronunciation. Minor spelling adjustments may also in-volve the addition of the hypocoristic suffix -ie/-y, as in the above-mentioned comfy, marvy, and loony, or the slang suffixes -o (lesbo←lesbian) and -ers(preggers←pregnant). Input may be ambiguous because of homophony (i.e. complete loss of contrast): for example, ad can stand for advertisement or administration, demo for demonstration or demolition, doc for doctor or document, compfor computer or competition, mac/Mac for macaroni or Macintosh, op for optical, operator, or opportunity, spec for speculation, or for special-ist/specification in slang, sub for submarine or substitute, veg for vegetable(as in vegan←veg + -an, OED3) or vegetarian, vet for veteran or veteri-narian. Coke is also ambiguous, being both a clipping from Coca cola and a clipped slang word for cocaine. However, different users or contexts may immediately select one etymology and exclude the other (cf. mac/Mac ‘a type of pasta’ vs. ‘a series of personal computers’). Graphically, the capital letter may also help discriminate between the two possibilities. Lastly, ambiguity or vagueness may involve source words which belong to different syntactic classes, as in dif for difference or different, fash for fashion or fashionable, glam for glamour, glamorous and glamorize, homofor homosexual (noun and adjective), perv/perve for perversion, pervert or perverted (also pervy), and psycho for psychopath or psychopathic. 3.1.3.2. Fore-clipping deletes the initial part of the word, thus preserving the final portion, which is a rather salient word part (preserved, e.g., in baby talk, Marchand 1969: 443). Some historical clippings belong to this type: (a)bet, (a)cute, (ad)venture, (a)mend, (ap)ply, (at)tend, (cara)van, (de)fence, (de)fend, (de)spite, still (from distil), (di)sport, (e)spy, (e)strange, (hi)story, (omni)bus, (o)possum, (peri)wig, (rac)coon, (vio lon)cello (reported by Kreidler 1979: 27–29). More recent examples include: bot (←robot), choke (←artichoke), chute (←parachute), copter (←heli-copter), droid (←android), fiche (←microfiche),’Fro (←Afro), lax (←relax, also used as a verb, see Rice University Neologisms Database), mia(←bulimia), mum (←chrysanthemum), phone, rents (←parents), tard(←retard), tude (←attitude), Am.E. vator (←elevator), zine (←maga-zine). As these examples show, most fore-clippings are formed from nouns, but also from adjectives (strange), verbs (mend, niff←sniff, spy), conjunc-tions (cos), adverbs (’deed←indeed), and prepositions (’gainst←against, ’neath←beneath or underneath, ’tween←between). Some are graphically marked by an apostrophe: e.g., ’cause for because, ’cept for except, ’cruits for recruits, ’fess for confess, ’fraid for afraid, ’zing for amazing, and the above-mentioned adverbs and prepositions. Oth-ers exhibit minor spelling adjustments, as in leet for elite, nuff for enough, sheen for machine, varsity, Yard for Montagnard. The following clipped words have a slangy flavour: gator (←alligator), loid (←celluloid), Nam (←Vietnam), nana (←banana ‘a foolish person’), Scouse (←lobscouse, ‘a native or inhabitant of Liverpool’), tache (←moustache), tato (←potato), za (←pizza) (Mattiello 2008a: 145).

3.1.3.3. Edge-clipping (or “ambiclipping” in Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1635) deletes the initial and final parts of the word, thus preserving the me-dial portion. Admittedly, this type is rare and its transparency is highly en-dangered. A few examples are: flu, fridge, jams (←pyjamas), polly (←apollinaris), tec, van (←advantage). Adams (1973: 136) also cites scriptfor prescription, later also used in slang to indicate ‘a prescription for nar-cotic drugs’ (Mattiello 2008a: 145), and Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) mention quiz (←inquisitive).64 The origin of the word gypsy is from Egyp-tian, with a high degree of opaqueness. The clipping ’lax (←relaxed; cf. relax above) has been recently used in an e-mail message (Rice University Neologisms Database). 3.1.3.4. Mid-clipping (cf. “median clipping” or “contraction” in Jamet 2009: 18, after Tournier 1985) deletes the middle part of the word, thus preserving both extremities. This is the rarest type, and the least transparent due to discontinuity of the base, as in ana for anorexia, cortisone for corticoster-one,65proctor for procurator, secy for secretary. The word miss (←mis-tress) also belongs to this group, because the final -s is not a plural marker, but the word ending. Other peripheral mid-clippings include apostrophes or hyphens, as in the place names B’ham (←Birmingham), B-way (←Broad-way), Jo’burg (←Johannesburg). 3.1.3.5. Random clippings retain some scattered letters, specifically, conso-nants, from the base word. Examples are: dlr (←dollar), HRN (←heroin), Jpn (←Japan), Ltd (←limited), mgr. (←manager), nr. (←near). Other such clippings are abbreviations used in text messages: e.g., jst for just, msgfor message, pls for please, ppl for people, rgds for regards, spk for speak, sry for sorry, vry for very, wk for week (López Rúa 2007). However, their relevance is more in writing than in oral speech. Cannon (1989) considers bldg (←building) a visual device with “no real theoretical import” (p. 105). 3.1.3.6. The various types of clipping mentioned so far can also be found with complex bases. The items resulting from this process are referred to as clipped compounds. Clipped compounds (also “clipping-compounds” in Marchand 1969: 445, “clipped forms” in Bauer 1983: 233, “shortened/abbreviated compounds” in Plag 2003: 122) reduce a compound to one of its parts. They are kept separate from the usual patterns of clippings because, like blends, they are made up of two or more bases. At the same time, however, they differ from blends because, while in blends the bases have an autonomous sense, in clipped compounds they have a composite meaning (Mattiello 2008a: 146). Examples of clipped compounds include back-clippings: exec (←execu-tive officer), graph (←graphic formula), lat (←latissimus dorsi), oppo(←opposite number ‘a partner’), narc/nark (←narcotics agent), poke (←pocket book), prefab (←prefabricated structure), pre-nup (←pre-nuptial agreement),66stereo (←stereophonic system), and tempo (←temporary building). The -s of plurality is retained in caps (←capital letters, cf. capi-tal). A more transparent group leaves the first element intact: jumbo (←jumbo jet), piano (←pianoforte), and slang after (←afternoon), common(←common sense), hard (←hard labour), mobile (←mobile (tele)phone), natural (←natural life), skin (←skinhead). At times also a portion of the second member is kept, as in fanfic (←fan fiction), high-tech, kidvid (←kid video). Fore-clippings are less common – e.g., (air)plane, (check)mate, (cock)roach, (earth)quake, (ice)berg, (turn)pike – but also more transparent because what is preserved is the head

component. The middle of the compound can be dropped either by leaving the first element intact, as in backstitution (←backsubstitution ‘a mathematical process’), breathalyser (←breath analyser), or by preserving the second element, as in adman (←advertising man), cell phone (←cellular (tele)phone), op art (←optical art), org-man (←organization man), pul-motor (←pulmonary motor). There are also cases in which only the first letter of the first member is kept, as in B-girl (←Bar girl), C-section (←Caesarean section), or E. coli (←Escherichia coli, or, in OED3, from Entamoeba coli). By contrast, in shrink (←head-shrinker) the middle of the compound is retained. Even discontinuous pieces can be clipped, as in biopic (←biographical picture), bodbiz (←body business), Chicom (←Chinese communist), Comsymp (←communist sympathizer), conlang (←constructed lan-guage), cyborg (←cybernetic organism), edbiz (←educational business), fro-yo (←frozen yogurt), hi-fi (←high fidelity), midcult (←middle cul-ture), op-ed (←opinion editorial), pro-am (←professional amateur), sci-fi (←science fiction), sitcom (←situation comedy), and wi-fi (←wireless fidelity), all of which retain the beginning of both bases. This class is fre-quently found in slang: e.g., des res (←desirable residence), misper (←missing person), slomo (←slow motion), spag bol (←spaghetti Bolognese), sysop (←system operator). The types adman and sci-fi are often confused with blends, for instance, by Jamet (2009: 17–18), who, however, admits that it is sometimes difficult to decide if we are confronted with clipping or blending. A distinction based on various parameters can be found in section 4.1.2. Furthermore, the items hi-fi and sci-fi are included in Dienhart’s (1999: 25) classification of reduplicative compounds, since their components ex-hibit rhyme with different consonant onset. Rhyme appears crucial in these items, intentionally read  and  in spite of their full forms’ pronunciation. However, their constituents are clipped forms of existing compound members, which differ from the bases of rhyming reduplicatives, like super-duper, in that both of them are meaningful and contribute to the meaning of the whole (see also 5.1.2 and Merlini Barbaresi 2008: 233– 234 for a similar account). 3.1.3.7. Another subcategory of the clipping process has proper names as the base. Clipped names or hypocoristics are abbreviated proper names which are used to express familiarity. Subtractive hypocoristics are metaphors of the pragmatic relation between the addresser and the addressee: morphotactic truncation is iconic of the reduced distance (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). Plag (2003: 116–121) amply illustrates each type of what he calls “trun-cated names”, focusing on their formal properties and prosodic structure. I will therefore limit this brief account on clipped names to observe that, like clippings of common nouns, clipped names obey various patterns and hence exhibit different degrees of transparency. The most transparent type pre-serves the initial portion of the name (Barb←Barbara, Bart←Bartholomew), at times with some spelling adjustments obstructing input recognition, as in Abe (←Abraham), Bob (←Robert), Dol (←Dorothy), Hal (←Harry), Mike (←Michael), Rick (←Richard), Sal (←Sarah), Tom (←Thomas), Vee (←Veronica).67Examples preserving the final portion of the name are also frequent, al-though less transparent than the former type: Bert (←Herbert or Albert), Dora (←Theodora, but no longer felt to be connected with the long form), Fred (←Alfred), Gail (←Abigail), Net (←Antoinette), Ron (←Aaron), and, with adjusted spelling, Belle (←Arabella), Bes (←Elizabeth, cf. Bet), Tilda (←Mathilda), Trix (←Beatrice). A lower degree of transparency is in names whose medial portion is pre-served, as in Dolph (←Adolphus), Liz, Lum/Lom (←Columbus), Mel (←Amelia), Tish (←Letitia), Trish (←Patricia), Ves (←Sylvester), and Xan(←Alexandra), where

the most salient parts are dropped. The least trans-parent type is in Floss (←Florence), with a discontinuous base. The ambiguity (or vagueness) of clipped names, however, is even more manifest than that of common nouns. The same input may obtain different outputs, as in Al and Lon from Alonzo, Eve and Lyn from Evelyn, Liz and Bet from Elizabeth, Pat and Trish from Patricia, and a set of names are shortened into the same output: Al stands for Albert, Alfred and Alonzo, Bert for Adelbert, Bertram and Robert, Belle is either Arabella or Belinda. As we will see, some of them may also acquire an -ie/-y suffix (Bertie, Patty). These are further confirmations of the difficult predictability of clipped forms. 3.1.3.8. As mentioned above, in a significant number of cases clipping is accompanied by suffixation, hence suffixed clipping. The suffix is generally used to convey a familiarising, hypocoristic or jocular flavour (Merlini Bar-baresi 2001; Mattiello 2008a). Hence, this type of suffix is called a “famili-arity marker” by Quirk et al. (1985: 1584). Suffixed or “embellished” clippings (vs. “plain” in Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1636) can be divided into three groups: ―Clippings with -ie/-y. By analogy with shortenings ending with a final vowel -i (e.g. deli), some clippings take an -ie/-y suffix (orthographic variants of which are -i and sometimes -ee), generally making monosyl-labic into disyllabic words (Kreidler 1979: 29–30). This phenomenon, studied by Merlini Barbaresi (2001), involves diminutive formation, as well as nicknames and familiar versions of common nouns and proper names, such as divvy (←dividend), Gerry (←Gerald), Mandy (←Amanda), sausie (←sausage), telly. It is also mentioned by Plag (2003), who states that “sometimes truncation and affixation can occur together, as with formations expressing intimacy or smallness, so-called diminutives” (p. 13).68The combination of shortening and diminutive/familiar suffixation is fa-voured by the fact that these processes generally share the same commu-nicative contexts and pragmatic situations. Hence, the main areas of use of clippings and diminutives are hypocoristics, slangy use, familiar lan-guage, and speech situations characterised by a close relationship and intimacy among speakers. The following are examples of clipped hypocoristics with a proper name or surname as their base: Andy (←Andrew), Angie (←Angela), Bar-bie/Babbie (←Barbara),69Bernie (←Bernard), Bertie (←Albert or Bertram), Charlie (←Charles or Charlotte), Debby (←Deborah), Gerry, Patty, Richie, Robbie (←Roberta); Bogey (←Bogart), Boney/Bonny (←Bonaparte), Bozzy (←Boswell), Dizzy (←Disraeli), Fergie (←Ferguson), Gorby (←Gorbachev), Montie (←Montgom-ery), Sherry (←Sheridan), Woolies (←Woolworths), Wordy (←Wordsworth). Back-clippings are the most common form, as the above-mentioned examples show, but other patterns may also occur, such as edge- and fore-clippings, as in Lizzie and Betty (←Elizabeth), Lexie (←Alexandra), Mandy (←Amanda), Netty (←Antoinette), Sandy (←Alexander). In slangy use, such hypocoristics may pass into the category of common nouns, to name everyday objects, as in Archie (←Archibald) ‘an anti- aircraft gun’, maggie/-y (←Margaret) ‘a prostitute’, patsy (←Patrick) ‘someone who is the object of ridicule’, and appellatives for cowards or effeminate men (e.g. gussie←Augustus, Lizzie/lizzie←Elizabeth). Other slang words with an -ie/-y suffix include: Argie (←Argentinian), Aussie (←Australian), bevie/bevvy (←beverage), divvy, footie/-y (←football), maggie (←magazine), Polly (←Apollinaris) ‘Apollinaris mineral water’, pornie (←pornography), surfie (←surfer), tatie/tattie(←potato), U-ey (←U-turn), and, from complex bases, billies (←dol-lar bills), chippie/-y (←chip-shop), goalie (←goalkeeper), offie (←off-licence shop) (see Mattiello 2008a: 107–108). The noun cutie/-eyused for ‘an attractive young woman’ is a suffixed word from cute, which is originally an aphetic form of acute (OED2).70Clippings with an -ie/-y suffix which are familiar

rather than slang are equally frequent, though the borderline between the two is often blurred. Examples include: addy (←address), alky (←alcoholic), barbie (←barbecue), bermies (←bermudas), biccy (←biscuit, after spelling modification; cf. Australian bickie), Caddie/-y (←Cadillac), cardie (←cardigan), ciggie/-y (←cigarette), Chevy (←Chevrolet), Commie (←Communist), hanky (←handkerchief), hubby, pollie (←politician), sausie, sissy, telly, and cozzie, mozzie (modified from costume, mosquito). The base is an adjective in comfy, grotty (←grotesque), marvy. The same pattern from a complex base is found in benny (←benzedrine tab-let), boatie (←boatman), credie (←credit card), druggie (←drug addict), folkie (←folk singer), grannie (←grandmother or grandfa-ther), juvie/-ey (←juvenile delinquent), movie, nightie (←nightdress), preemie (←premature baby), postie (←postman), shoppie/-y (←shop assistant). The plural suffix regularly occurs after derivation, as in civvies(←civilian clothes), pokies (←poker machines), rellies (←relatives), sunnies (←sunglasses), undies (←underwear), veggies (←vegeta-bles). Fore-clippings, such as baccy (←tobacco), bikie (←motorbike), brolly (←umbrella), are again less recurrent. ―Clippings with -o. The type with an -o suffix is less common. It is found in historic beano (←bean-feast), robbo (←Robinson, as in Red Robbo←Derek Robinson), Salvo (←Salvationist), and more recent aggro(←aggravation/aggression), ammo (←ammunition), combo (←com-bination), lesbo (←lesbian, after homo(sexual)), and milko (←milk-man). This type is formed by analogy with clippings ending with an original vowel o: e.g., anthro(pology), demo, disco, hippo, intro, limo(usine), loco(motive), mayo, memo, mono, photo, physio(therapist), polio(myelitis), promo, rhino(ceros), stereo, tempo. The -o suffix frequently occurs in Australian and New Zealand slang formations (as observed by Mattiello 2008a: 115): e.g., ambo (←ambu-lance worker), Commo (←Communist), compo (←compensation), garbo (←garbage collector) ‘a dustman’, gyppo (←gipsy), jollo (←jollification), journo (←journalist), muso (←musician), preggo (←pregnant), reffo (←refugee), rego (← (car) registration), servo (←service station), smoko (←smoke) ‘break from work’, starko (←stark naked), wino (←wine) ‘alcoholic’. Some such words also display al-teration of the base spelling, as in arvo (←afternoon), Nasho (←Na-tional Service), sammo (←sandwich), and secko (←sex) ‘a sexual pervert’.71Unlike words with the -ie suffix, terms formed using the -o suffix (or naturally ending with o) tend to be coarse, vigorous, excessive, or con-temptuous, and used more by males than by females. They are often used to criticise public figures and movements (e.g. Cathos for Catho-lics, and Commo above) (Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn 2011). ―Clippings with -er(s). Even less common is the type with an -er suffix, as in bedder (←bedroom), or -ers (cumulated with -s), as in cham-pers/shampers and preggers. The earliest attested examples are nouns connected with sport and university habits, as in footer (←football, 1863), brekker (←breakfast, 1889), ekker (←exercise, 1891), soc-cer/socker (←association football, 1891), and rugger (←rugby foot-ball, 1893). Other familiar examples with an -er/-ers ending are bathers(Aus.E., ←bathing shorts, also swimmers←swimming shorts), bed-sitter(←bed-sitting room), collekkers (←collections) ‘an Oxford examination’, leccer (←lecture, also lecker, lekker), and starkers (←stark naked, see starko above). Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn (2011: 365) remark that the -s suf-fix is “almost exclusively reserved for proper nouns”, as in Honkers (←Hong Kong), Sainters (←St Kilda Football Club), Sydders (←Syd-ney). The -s suffix is attached to a clipped base in Babs (←Barbara), and in Australian defs (←definitely), maybs (←maybe), mobes (←mobile phone), peeps (←people), probs (←probably; cf. prob(lem)s), and

whatevs (←whatever) (Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn 2011: 365).72Table 1 summarises the various types of clippings described in this section.