Abbreviations

During World War I and later there appeared and became popular to call countries, governmental, social and military, industrial and trade organizations not by their full names but by initial abbreviations, derived from writing: the USSR, the UNO.

There are two ways of reading such abbreviations:

1. As a succession of the alphabetical readings of the constituent letters

e.g. Y.C.L. (Young Communist League), CPSU, BBC (British Broad­casting Corporation), p.m. (prime minister), SOS

2. As a succession of sounds denoted bythe constituent letters, i.e. as if the abbreviations were ordinary words: UNESCO, NАТО.

Words belonging to this group are often isolated from the prototypes.

As to their way of shortening abbreviations are subdivided into 2groups:

1. Initial abbreviations: SOS

2. Combined shortened compound words (they consist of initial letters of the first word or words and a certain form of the second words): A-terror, H-bang; U - stands for upper classes in such combinations: U-pronunciation, U-language, non-U is its opposite, so non-U speakers are those whose speech habits show that they do not belong to the upper classes.

All kinds of shortening are very productive in present day English. They are especially numerous in colloquial speech. Shortened words assimilate in the language and undergo all word-changes.

e.g. No increase for MP's.

The manager okeyed the decision.