A new Linguistic theme visualized for @la_lettura 573 (20th November 2022) on acronyms, initialisms, symbols, and abbreviations.
Abbreviations and acronyms perform a tachygraphic task in writing and are part of the innovation processes of a language.
We encounter them more often than we might think, sometimes without even realising it. This owes a lot to their dramatic rise since the early 20th century when literacy started to become more widespread.
Their primary purpose is to save time and space – reducing phrases to a collection of letters far easier and quicker to say and understand – but they have also turned into something of a fashion statement among the younger generation.
A large number of people point the finger of blame for the surge in popularity of acronyms at techies and teenagers, yet abbreviations have been widespread for centuries, since ancient times.
An acronym is a word made up of the initial letter or letters of the name of people, companies and entities, associations and parties, and various denominations, as an abbreviated form used for convenience to replace the entire name. It probably derives from Lat. singŭla (littera) «abbreviation».
The same goes for the initialism, similar to an acronym but spoken as initials rather than a word.
Abbreviations refer to the shortening (or abridgment) of a word. In modern abbreviations, the omission of letters is often indicated by a dot inside the word (Italian f.lli for fratelli) or outside (Italian prof. for professore). Born from Latin epigraphy, used until the 15th century in all manuscripts and in the first incunabula (sometimes in the form of colons “:” also in place of whole endings - for example “quib:” per quibus, “omnib;” per omnibus, “q;” for the enclitic que), and already in antiquity, when some groups of letters and some short words of frequent use were commonly replaced by symbols that summarized several signs - for example, a kind of “9” summarized with and cum ( “9cedo” for concedo, “cir9” for circum and even isolated “9” could stand for cum). Two of the oldest abbreviation signs, already present among the examples collected by the grammarian Valerius Probus in the first century AD, “7” and “&” indicated the conjunction et, while a 3-like sign substituted for various combinations of letters (e.g. “hab3” for habet, “d3” for debet, “prod3” for prodest).
Abbreviations refer to the shortening (or abridgment) of a word. In modern abbreviations, the omission of letters is often indicated by a dot inside the word (Italian f.lli for fratelli) or outside (Italian prof. for professore). Born from Latin epigraphy, used until the 15th century in all manuscripts and in the first incunabula (sometimes in the form of colons “:” also in place of whole endings - for example “quib:” per quibus, “omnib;” per omnibus, “q;” for the enclitic que), and already in antiquity, when some groups of letters and some short words of frequent use were commonly replaced by symbols that summarized several signs - for example, a kind of “9” summarized with and cum ( “9cedo” for concedo, “cir9” for circum and even isolated “9” could stand for cum). Two of the oldest abbreviation signs, already present among the examples collected by the grammarian Valerius Probus in the first century AD, “7” and “&” indicated the conjunction et, while a 3-like sign substituted for various combinations of letters (e.g. “hab3” for habet, “d3” for debet, “prod3” for prodest).
Over time, acronyms and abbreviations tend to stabilize and spread in the writing habits of various fields of humanistic and scientific knowledge and in daily life due to the need for brevity and clarity (think of the symbols of chemical elements such as O, Al, Cl, or to those of units of measurement such as m, bar, eV, Hz, etc.).
The diffusion of new formations - especially in written communication for social media purposes - has needs similar to those of antiquity, like quick writing and better use of space. It can give rise to opacity for those subjects who are not involved in the immediate context of the communication. In fact, a certain level of codification given by use is ingrained in these forms.
