Акронимы в английском языке

Acronyms

Работу выполнили

учащаяся 10 А класса МОУ «Лицей №56» г. Саратова

Гордеева Софья

Научный руководитель

Шеповалова М.Г.

Саратов 2019

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………….p.3
2. Historical and current use……………………………………pp. 4 -7
3. Pseudo-acronyms…………………………………………….p.7
4. Russian acronyms……………………………………………p.8
5. Conclusion…………………………………………………..p. 9
6. References…………………………………………………...p. 10
7. Appendix…………………………………………………….pp.11 - 13

1. Introduction

Lots of people know some acronyms that are used in text messages and in social networks  but not so many people know that this trend is rather old. It started in 1987 when e-mails became very popular. To make one’s e-mail shorter and send them faster a certain amount of abbreviations was invented. Some of them are widespread in oral speech, some may be found even in official dictionaries. The most part of acronyms are informal but there are some that can be useful, for example, in business: ASAP (as soon as possible), NRN (no reply necessary), TBA (to be advised) etc.

In our research we tried to learn the history of acronyms, their usage and the most popular  and common acronyms.

II.        Historical and current use

An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters (as in NATO or laser) and sometimes syllables (as in Benelux).

There are no universal standards for the multiple names for such abbreviations or for their orthographic styling. In English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common in the 20th century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process, and they are viewed as a subtype of  blending.

The difference between acronyms and abbreviations is : acronyms are proper words created from the initial letter or two of the words in a phrase, and they are pronounced like other words (cf. snafu, radar, laser, or UNESCO). By contrast, abbreviations do not form proper words, and so they are pronounced as strings of letters, for example, S.O.B., IOU, U.S.A., MP.

Whereas an abbreviation may be any type of shortened form, such as words with the middle omitted (for example, Rd for road or Dr for Doctor), an acronym is a word formed from the first letter or first few letters of each word in a phrase.

Although the word “acronym” is often used to refer to any abbreviation formed from initial letters, some dictionaries and usage commentators define acronym to mean an abbreviation that is pronounced as a word, in contrast to an initialism - ‌an abbreviation formed from a string of initials (and possibly pronounced as individual letters). Some dictionaries include additional senses equating acronym with initialism. The distinction, when made, hinges on whether the abbreviation is pronounced as a word or as a string of individual letters. Examples in reference works that make the distinction include NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/, scuba /ˈskuːbə/, and radar /ˈreɪdɑːr/ for acronyms; and FBI /ˌɛfˌbiːˈaɪ/, CRT /ˌsiːˌɑːrˈtiː/, and HTML /ˌeɪtʃˌtiːˌɛmˈɛl/ for initialisms.

There is no special term for abbreviations which pronunciation involves the combination of letter names and words or word-like pronunciations of strings of letters, such as JPEG /ˈdʒeɪpɛɡ/ and MS-DOS /ˌɛmɛsˈdɒs/. There is also some disagreement as to what to call abbreviations that some speakers pronounce as letters and others pronounce as a word. For example, the terms URL and IRA can be pronounced as individual letters: /ˌjuːˌɑːrˈɛl/ and /ˌaɪˌɑːrˈeɪ/, respectively; or as a single word: /ɜːrl/ and /ˈaɪrə/, respectively.

Let’s compare a few examples of each type:

Pronounced as a word, containing only initial letters:

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Scuba: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

Laser: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format

Pronounced as a word, containing a mixture of initial and non-initial letters:

Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei ('secret state police')

Radar: radio detection and ranging

Pronounced as a word or as a string of letters, depending on speaker or context:

FAQ: ([fæk] or ef-a-cue) frequently asked questions

SQL: ([siːkwəl] or ess-cue-el) Structured Query Language.

Pronounced as a combination of spelling out and a word:

CD-ROM: (cee-dee-[rɒm]) Compact Disc read-only memory

JPEG: (jay-[pɛɡ] or jay-pee-e-gee) Joint Photographic Experts Group

SFMOMA: (ess-ef-[moʊmə] or ess-ef-em-o-em-a) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Pronounced only as a string of letters:

BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation

OEM: original equipment manufacturer

USA: United States of America

Pronounced as a string of letters, but with a shortcut:

AAA: (triple-A) American Automobile Association; abdominal aortic aneurysm; anti-aircraft artillery;

IEEE: (I triple-E) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

NAACP: (N double-A C P or N A A C P) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Early examples in English

The use of Latin and Neo-Latin terms in vernaculars has been pan-European and predates modern English. Some examples of acronyms in this class are:

A.M. (from Latin ante meridiem, "before noon") and P.M. (from Latin post meridiem, "after noon");

A.D. (from Latin Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord"), whose complement in English, B.C.( Before Christ), is English-sourced;

O.K., a term of disputed origin, dating back at least to the early 19th century, now used around the world.

In English, the first known acronyms (as opposed to plain old initialisms) cropped up in the telegraphic code developed by Walter P. Phillips for the United Press Association in 1879. The code abbreviated 'Supreme Court of the United States' as SCOTUS and 'President of the' as POT, giving way to POTUS by 1895.

Current use

Acronyms are used most often to abbreviate names of organizations and long or frequently referenced terms. The armed forces and government agencies frequently employ acronyms. Business and industry also are prolific coiners of acronyms. The rapid advance of science and technology in recent centuries seems to be an underlying force driving the usage, as new inventions and concepts with multiword names create a demand for shorter, more manageable names. One representative example, from the U.S. Navy, is COMCRUDESPAC, which stands for commander, cruisers destroyers Pacific; it's also seen as "ComCruDesPac". "YABA-compatible" (where YABA stands for "yet another bloody acronym") is used to mean that a term's acronym can be pronounced but is not an offensive word, e.g., "When choosing a new name, be sure it is 'YABA-compatible'."

Acronym use has been further popularized by text messaging on mobile phones with Short Message Systems (SMS). To fit messages into the 160-character SMS limit, acronyms such as "GF" (girlfriend), "LOL" (laughing out loud), and "DL" (download or down low) have become popular. Some linguists disdain texting acronyms and abbreviations as decreasing clarity, or as failure to use "pure" or "proper" English. Others point out that language change has happened for thousands of years, and argue that it should be embraced as inevitable, or as innovation that adapts the language to changing circumstances. In this view, the modern practice is just as legitimate as those in "proper" English of the current generation of speakers, such as the abbreviation of corporation names in places with limited writing space (e.g., ticker tape, newspaper column inches).

3. Pseudo-acronyms

Some apparent acronyms or other abbreviations do not stand for anything and cannot be expanded to some meaning. Such pseudo-acronyms may be pronunciation-based, such as BBQ (bee-bee-cue), for "barbecue", or K9 (kay-nine) for "canine". Pseudo-acronyms also frequently develop as "orphan initialisms"; an existing acronym is redefined as a non-acronymous name, severing its link to its previous meaning. For example, the letters of the SAT, a US college entrance test originally dubbed "Scholastic Aptitude Test", no longer officially stand for anything.

This is common with companies that want to retain brand recognition while moving away from an outdated image: American Telephone and Telegraph became AT&T, Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC to de-emphasize the role of frying in the preparation of its signature dishes, and British Petroleum became BP. Russia Today has rebranded itself as RT. Genzyme Transgenics Corporation became GTC Biotherapeutics, Inc. in order to reduce perceived corporate risk of sabotage/vandalism by Luddite activists.

Pseudo-acronyms may have advantages in international markets: for example, some national affiliates of International Business Machines are legally incorporated as "IBM" (for example, "IBM Canada") to avoid translating the full name into local languages. Likewise, "UBS" is the name of the merged Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation, and "HSBC" has replaced "The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation." Sometimes, companies whose original name gives a clear indication of their place of origin will use acronyms when expanding to foreign markets—for example, Toronto-Dominion Bank continues to operate under the full name in Canada, but its U.S. subsidiary is known as TD Bank, just as Royal Bank of Canada used its full name in Canada (a constitutional monarchy), but its now-defunct U.S. subsidiary was called RBC Bank.

4. Russian acronyms

Acronyms that use parts of words (not necessarily syllables) are commonplace in Russian as well, e.g. Газпром , for Газовая промышленность . There are also initialisms, such as СМИ , for средства массовой информации . Another Russian acronym, ГУЛаг combines two initials and three letters of the final word: it stands for Главное управление лагерей).

Historically, OTMA was an acronym sometimes used by the daughters of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his consort, Alexandra Feodorovna, as a group nickname for themselves, built from the first letter of each girl's name in the order of their births : Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia.

The world's longest acronym, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is НИИОМТПЛАБОПАРМБЕТЖЕЛБЕТРАБСБОМОНИМОНКОНОТДТЕХСТРОМОНТ . However, this is more precisely a combination acronym/clipped compound, as multiple initial letters of some constituent words are used. The 56-letter term (54 in Cyrillic) is from the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology and means "The laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." (научно-исследовательская [...] лаборатория операций по армированию бетона и железобетонных работ по сооружению сборно-монолитных и монолитных конструкций отдела технологии строительно-монтажного управления).

5. Conclusion.

Have you ever heard an acronym but you didn't know what it meant? It can really throw you off your game in a conversation.

We use acronyms every day sometimes even not guessing it is an acronym.  While searching the Internet we’ve found hundreds of acronyms. Some of them are common-used while others are unknown. While conducting a survey among teenagers we’ve found out if they know what acronyms are and how often teens use them (see Appendix 1).

References

https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/acronym.html

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/marketing-acronym-glossary

http://www.transl8it.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym#cite_note-MWDEU-2

http://www.techdictionary.com/chat.html

https://www.allacronyms.com/

https://www.genon.ru/GetAnswer.aspx?qid=85c57407-fba5-40f3-9876-0af663a69e3a

Appendix 1.

Appendix 2.

Appendix 2.

Appendix 3.

List of popular acronyms: