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Acronyms and shortenings
Like acronyms, acronyms are a creation process that has become very widespread in modern society, especially due to its scientific and technical development. There are acronyms whose structure allows their pronunciation as words, which then makes them acquire the name of acronyms. Due to their increase, they are added to the usual lexicon in many cases.
An acronym that is pronounced as a word can be made up of the first letters of the sentence it replaces: UN / FAR.
Or only take into account the terms with lexical value: laser (light amplification by stimulated mission of radiation) .
It can be a word formed by joining part of two words. This last type of acronym merges two lexical elements, almost always taking the beginning from the first element and the end from the second: bit (binary digit) / transistor (transfer resistor) / radar (radio detection and r anging) / modem (mo dulator dem odulator).
The meaning of an acronym is the sum plus the meanings of the words that generate it. telematics (of telecommunication and computing) / docudrama (of dramatic documentary) / teleserie (of tele and series).
In Spanish, the process of acronym –procedure in the formation of acronyms– is not very common, but it is old. An example of this was the change in the fifteenth century in the form of respect vos for your mercy, which evolved as vuesed and vusted to originate the acronym you. The old form still lives in the abbreviation: Vd.
If the acronyms are pronounced as they are written –that is, as acronyms– they will be made with an initial capital letter if they are proper names, and also –it is prescribed today– if they have more than four letters: Egrem / Uneac / Mined.
That there are those that do not exceed four, so all their letters will be in capital letters: UPEC / FEU.
If they are acronyms based on common names, they will conform to the laws of graphic accentuation and number (singular or plural): radar – radars / laser – lasers / modem – modems.
The fourth type of abbreviation corresponds to the so-called shortenings, voices created by reducing the phonic body of a word or expression by eliminating a final or, more rarely, initial segment. Logically, this reduction is also graphic when the shortenings, which are almost always born in the colloquial oral language, especially in the youth sphere, pass into the written language, thus forming – so to speak – a new word, which in no case have a point. They manifest themselves within the figures of transformation called apheresis, syncope and apocope. Apheresis consists of the suppression of some sound at the beginning of a word: psychology by psychology / nomeby gnome.
Syncopation is the suppression of some sound within a word: tired for tired / legislating for legislating.
The apocope is when the deletion is at the end of a word: gentleman! by gentlemen! / one hundred percent .
In Cuba, a group of shortenings due to apheresis are very common: pre > pre-university / agro > agro-market / motorcycle > motorcycle / cinema > cinematographer / car > car / otolaryngologist > otorhinolaryngologist / photo > photography / porn > pornographic / teacher > teacher / electro > electrocardiogram / kilo > kilogram.
Most of the shortenings maintain the gender of the complete word: the pre for the pre- university / the photo for the photograph.
When they are nouns, they usually follow the general rules of plural formation: motorcycles / agros.
When they work as adjectives they are sometimes invariable: porn movies / overtime.
