LOL: Lady of Leisure? Langer On Line?

Abbreviations, Acronyms, Contractions and 'Textese'

Back in February 2001 I spent a few days with the United States Marine Corps at their base in Jacksonville, North Carolina. At the end of my sojourn, I was taken to Raleigh Durham airport to catch my connection to JFK, then onwards back to Barcelona.

With nothing to do but put the time in, I bellied up to the bar at my gate and struck up a conversation with the punters in my immediate vicinity and a very witty bartender by the name of Fred Etters.

The craic was so mighty that at one point, Fred, a portly gentleman with many an anecdote, good ole southern charm and an accent straight out of 'Gone with the Wind', handed me a calling card for a property he had just purchased; a massive landholding out in Arizona with the moniker of 'Empty Pockets Ranch'. I lost no time in enquiring the reason for the ranch's singular toponym.

"Becawse buyin' that ranch darn well cleaned me out."

"Not just a clever name, then," said I.

According to an announcement over the public address system my flight had been delayed once again; the third announcement to that effect in the space of an hour. Resigned to my fate, I did what most adult males would do in my situation; I sighed and got another beer in.

"Plane's delayed again," I offered Fred in the way of an explanation.

"Who you say you're flyin' back with?"

"DELTA," I replied.

The people around regarded me with the sympathy one normally reserves for those most unfortunate of souls who have just received the news that their entire family has been wiped out by the black plague.

"Son," said Fred, "in the land of the acronym that is the U. S. of A., DELTA stands for two things: one; do [not] expect [to] leave the airport and two; do [not] expect [your] luggage to arrive."

Fred was right on both counts. On my leg over I had endured the ghastliest of transatlantic flights during which - amongst other tragedies - I had an entire cup of coffee split over me by the air hostess; luckily for me the coffee was so weak it left a minimalist stain. On landing at JFK I was informed by a DELTA air head that my connecting flight to Raleigh Durham had been cancelled; a mere half an hour before take off for 'technical reasons'; read: I was the only passenger on board.

DELTA offered to get me in later that evening via Atlanta and Wilmington, if my memory serves me. I replied that although my surname happened to be Kennedy, I was not a presidential candidate embarking on a whistle stop tour of the eastern seaboard. I asked them to put me on a direct flight. The only one available was operated by American Airlines, four hours later. I accepted the change, reminding them to unload my luggage and send it to American. They never did. For the next three days I had to wear the same attire I had left the house in. I learnt my lesson.

DELTA eventually found my luggage; it had been at Raleigh Durham airport for the entire period. Contrary to what is supposed to pass for airline security with regard to the prohibition of luggage travelling without its owner, my suitcase had been sent on via Atlanta. Then it languished for three days in their lost luggage room, despite the fact I called their 'helpline' twice a day using their 'tracker code'. I might have told them to look in the lost luggage room at Raleigh, first.

Fred was also right on the USA being the land of the acronym; they proliferate -especially in the armed forces - to the point that the entire Marine Corps' codebook is a dictionary of acronyms. A few days earlier, I had witnessed a CAPEX manoeuvre; a kind of Marine Corps show, an exhibition of their many capabilities, hence the name.

During this day of activity I saw many such aptitudes, all of which had one thing in common: their titles were acronyms. Anyone who has ever seen the film 'Behind Enemy Lines' - which is based upon the rescue in Bosnia of downed pilot Capt. Scott O'Grady - would recognise TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel).

By an incredible stroke of serendipity, O'Grady's rescuer, General (then Col.) Martin Berndt, happened to be hosting the CAPEX on this particular day. General Bernt, a good friend of SDLP founder John Hume, gave me a first hand account of the incident; derrin' do stuff indeed.

The CSS (Combat Service Support) was my favourite. I must say that DELTA could learn a lot from the Marines about what real catering is about. Full tummies very rarely give rise to querulous mouths in my opinion; I have always felt that a full fridge is the sign of a happy house. Peruse the following menu:

Lasagne
Salad
Creamed Potatoes, Corn and Green Beans
Roast Turkey in Cranberry Sauce
Fresh Fruit
Apple Turnover
Coffee

Moreover, it all tasted as it was supposed to. Can anyone in the world hold a candle to the American Armed Forces if that kind of alimentation is par for the course in the field? I think not. They even had an acronym above the men's urinals: TWOT (Take Weapon Out [of] Trousers). Well, actually, they didn't; I just made that one up.

However, as long as the English language has been recognisable as English, efforts to abbreviate it have been manifold, especially during the period between of the 15th and 17th centuries which saw the standardisation of the English language. For instance, phoneme sets such as 'er' were replaced by an inverted letter 'c':
ɔ

Try this for size, taken from the Oxford University Register of 1503:

"Mast ɔ subwarden ɔ y ɔ mēde me to you. And wher ɔ y wrot to you the last wyke that y trouyde itt good to differr ɔ thelection ɔ ov ɔ to quīdena ɔ tinitatis y have be thougħt me syn ɔ that itt woll be then ɔ a bowte mydsom ɔ ."

It may seem cumbersome to the modern eye but, nonetheless, it was a timorous step along what has now become a well-trodden path. Not merely confined to Oxford, speakers of English in other parts of the world took up the baton. In Boston, Massachusetts during the mid 19th century, a fad of abbreviation began which spread across the entire United States, leaving us the universal term 'OK' as its enduring legacy.

Etymologically descended from the Latin brevis, meaning 'short', abbreviations abound in the English language, which in literal terms signify a shortening of a word by any means. Under the umbrella of the abbreviation, although not to be confused with it, are also contractions; as in the case of a negative modal verb, 'mustn't'. Acronyms as well as initialisms also fall under the influence of this all-encompassing phrase, yet the characteristics of each are quite different.

An abbreviation of a word is made by cutting off the end part of the word, as in Prof. Steven Hawkins or Rev. Ian Paisley.

A contraction is a kind of abbreviation, but an abbreviation is not necessarily a contraction, the latter fundamentally being a reduction in size by the combination of distinct parts. In the case of auxiliary verbs such as 'be', the personal pronoun and the present tense of the verb are joined together by an apostrophe; 'I am' becomes 'I'm', 'you are' becomes 'you're' and so on. The same is true of the negatives of all auxiliary and modal verbs when the negation 'not' is contracted then added onto the verb stem, leaving us with 'haven't', 'doesn't' and 'shouldn't'.

An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of other words, for example, UNESCO. Some of these combinations have entered the English languages as nouns in the own right, like laser, sonar or even Aids.

An intitialism is an abbreviation consisting of letters which are pronounced separately, such as the BBC and the IRA.

Widespread use of the mobile phone for electronic communication gave rise during the 1990s to an informal scheme of abbreviation which has come to be known as textese, in which an often substantial portion of the text is reduced to fit within the confines of the 160 character message lengths on GSM phones, and also for the purpose of economy; the sorter the message the less one has to pay.

Textese is constantly developing as social networking sites such as Twitter encourage its use. Although it is a relatively new phenomenon, textese is the natural successor of former telegraph language, which used to be charged by the word. Correspondents would file their copy omitting all but the most necessary punctuation, thus generating one word phrases of extraordinary length.

With regard to abbreviations in general, there are, however, differences in usage which are by no means confined to which side of the Atlantic one was raised; inconsistencies are rife and the rules have either evolved or have been changed; in some cases - the use of full stops, for instance - the rules have been done away with entirely for the sake of convenience.

As there are several conventions in current use the only recommendation that can be made is the following: be consistent. With regard to policy on submissions, publishers will usually express their preferences in a style guide. However, most will accept the writer's preference if he or she has a particular predilection for a certain convention.

USAGE

1) Full Stops. A full stop is written after an abbreviated word and not in the case of a contraction. There are exceptions, however, and there exists a general lack of consensus as to when this should happen. There remains great confusion over whether to use full stops and in differentiating between an abbreviation and a contraction, particularly if there is a version of each to shorten the same word.

a) An abbreviation, a word shortened by the omission of its end part, requires a full stop or period. Thus:

The Rev. Ian Paisley is convinced that the Pope is the Antichrist.

b) A contraction, on the other hand, a word or a compound shortened by the omission of a middle part requires no such full stop.

The Revd Ian Paisley once referred to the former British Prime Minister, John Major, as a 'mad spáilpín'. [Itinerant, landless labourer].

c) Hart's Rules of English give the following guidelines:

Doctor (contraction: the middle of the word is missing) becomes Dr (no full stop).
Professor (abbreviation; the end of the word is missing) becomes Prof. (full stop).
The Right Honourable (contraction [first word]: no full stop and abbreviation [second word]: full stop) becomes Rt Hon.

d) American English is not as strict in this regard and is as likely to use a full stop (or period) after a contraction:

John F. Kennedy, Jr.

e) There are never any full stops between letters of the same word. For example:
Kilometre - km (not: k.m.)
Kilogramme - kg (not: k.g.)

Compare this usage to abbreviations of similar terms made up of more than one word:
Miles per hour - m.p.h.
Ante meridiem - a.m.

Once again note the American inconsistency regarding the use of full stops in initialisms:

United States - U.S.

However:
European Union - EU
United Nations - UN

f) Addresses. Curiously enough both conventions seem to be acceptable on both sides of the Atlantic. For example, in the European English convention 'street' and 'avenue' can be treated as both abbreviations and contractions:

Street - St. The end of the word (reet) is missing.
Avenue - Ave. The end of the word (nue) is missing.

Alternatively, by the same yardstick, given the similarity of the letters ending both the abbreviation and the words themselves, 't' in the case of 'street' and 'e' in the case of 'avenue' then treatment of these words as contractions become justifiable:

Street - St The middle of the word (tree) is missing.
Avenue - Ave (The middle of the word (venu) is missing.

This is usually the case in the United States, where full stops as part of addresses or on road signs are usually eschewed.

The first word in the city Saint Louis, in shorter form, is a contraction; and therefore should be written without a full stop:

St Louis.

This norm applies to all saints' names in general.

g) When an abbreviation ends a sentence, only one full stop is necessary:

The capital of the United States is Washington D.C.

h) Idiosyncrasies of Convention.

i American English.

The rules adhered to regarding the use of full stops in the American convention are usually those to be found in 'The Chicago Manual of Style'. Notwithstanding some idiosyncrasies do exist.

Two word abbreviations can be found written using capital letters with full stops:

United States - U.S.

However, other abbreviations are written in capital letters without full stops:

Personal computer - PC
Compact disk - CD

In direct contrast to its European English counterparts, the United States' paper of record, The New York Times, always abbreviates using full stops (or periods):

Personal Computer - P.C.
International Business Machines: I.B.M.

iii European English.

Ironically enough it is the European convention of English which throws up a greater number of idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies, significantly more than its American cousin. As has been mentioned earlier, many institutions - particularly in the mass media - have forsaken full stops in all abbreviations for the sake of convenience; the BBC included in their number. Thus:

Social titles such as Ms or Mr (These would not have had full stops anyway, being contractions.)

Two letter abbreviations for countries or organisations:

United States - US
Member of Parliament - MP
Teachta Dála (the Irish equivalent) - TD
United Nations - UN

Words seldom abbreviated in lower case letters:

PR - public relations (never p.r.)

Proper nouns or names of people:

BC - British Columbia

JRR Tolkien - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

2) Plural Forms. Some of these points have already been covered in other sections, such as the section on the apostrophe.

a) To form the plural of an abbreviation, a number (as in year) or capital letters now used as a noun, simply add an 's'.

CDs are fast becoming obsolete.
Glam rock was a product of the 70s.
When you address the Queen don't forget to mind your Ps and Qs.

b) When an abbreviation has more than one full stop, place the 's' after the final one.

Honorary Ph.D.s have been awarded to both Bob Geldof and Ian Paisley.

I was getting the ould d.t.s (now increasingly obsolete) the morning after a mammoth session on the whiskey.

The same plurals can be informally rendered without the full stops:

PhDs
DTs

c) An apostrophe or inverted commas can be used in a plural form, for example, to avoid confusion with other words:

Don't forget to dot your 'i's and cross your 't's.

3) Acronyms can often be written as a set of capital letters or with the first letter only in the upper case:

NATO or Nato
AIDS or Aids

Other acronyms have been absorbed into the language as nouns in their own right and are not capitalised at all: 'laser', 'sonar', 'scuba', etc.

4) Initialisms on the other hand must remain in capital letters:

The BBC (never the Bbc).

5) Contractions. Besides nouns, verbs can also be used in contraction form.

a) The most common examples are the subject (person or personal pronoun) plus the weak form of an auxiliary verb such as 'be' or 'have':

He's coming to town today.
I've never been to Australia.

b) In a similar vein, contractions can be made with nouns as well as pronouns:

Your granny's got a brand new car, I see.
A mother's love's a blessing. (Mother's in this case is a Saxon genitive; not a contraction.)

c) Negative forms of auxiliary and modal verbs can also be contractions. In some cases (be, have, will, shall, would) either the verb or the negation (not) can be contracted:

He's not or he isn't.
He'll not or he won't.
He'd not or he wouldn't.

Most speakers of English would not use the first person singular of the verb 'to be' in the form of contraction; therefore only one form is used:

I'm not late, am I?

To make an interrogative the second person of the verb is borrowed:

I'm late, aren't I?

Compare this to usage in Ireland and other places:

I'm not or I amn't.
Amn't I?

d) We cannot contact a verb when nothing follows:

Is she coming over?
Yes, she is. ('Yes, she's' is incorrect.)

Not to be confused with a contracted negation.

Is she coming over?
No, she isn't. (The negation 'not', is contracted in this instance; not the verb).

e) The use of verbal contractions is most common when writing informally or when relaying dialogue. They would not normally be used in a job application, for instance:

I am writing to you in order to apply for the position of Writer in Residence.
Not: I'm writing

f) Ain't. This contraction is not accepted as standard English yet its use is widespread in the U.S., in some dialects and 'uneducated' forms of English, such as cockney. Its use is also prevalent in popular songs. Ain't is a replacement for am not, are not, is not, have not and has not.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm, no more.
I ain't got no money.

6) Units of Measurement. The International System of Units defines a set of base units in the form of Roman or Greek letters as symbols, along with other characters, such as the degree symbol in Celsius temperatures (º).

a) No full stops are to be used in units of measurement; the number or quantity appears first, followed by one space and finally the unit of measurement. Thus:

Ten kilometres = 10 km (10k.m. or 10 k.m. are both incorrect).

The exceptions to the rule on space are the unit symbols for degree, minute and second which immediately follow the number, in the rendition of latitude and longitude, for example:

Forty degrees, eleven minutes and fifteen seconds North: 40º 11' 15''N

b) Upper case and lower case letters. Lower case letters are used as abbreviations for base units:

g = gram
m = metre

The exception being a capital L for litre, which sometimes appears to avoid confusion with upper case 'i' in some typefaces.

Upper case letters are used for units named after a person:
Pa = pascal
S = siemens
V = volt

In written form these units are always transcribed in lower case letters:

All cars these days come with a 12 volt power point.

7) Syllabic abbreviations. These are formed using the initial syllables of sometimes several words.

Interpol is derived from international plus police.

Syllabic abbreviations are numerous in U.S. military parlance:

DEFCON is the term used by the Pentagon to describe the state of alert or defence condition of the United States.

8) SMS 'language' or 'Textese'. Although there are no hard and fast ground rules in this constantly expanding method of communication using electronic technology, certain protocols have developed as a norm for the genre, including the use of lower case letters across the board.

a) Rebus. The use of a rebus; that is to say, a pictogram in representation of a syllabic sound. Thus:

i <3 u = I love you.

The letter 'I' for first person singular, the pictogram representing the heart for the verb 'love' and the letter 'u' instead of the object pronoun, 'you'.

b) Single letter abbreviations are used instead of entire words. Thus:

The letter 'c' replaces the verb 'to see'.
The letter 'u' replaces the pronoun 'you'.

Combinations of letters can be used to shorten series of words:

Ur can be either the contracted form of the verb 'to be', second person singular or plural 'you're' or the possessive adjective 'your'.

c) Numbers are often incorporated into a text, especially when they share the same phonetic sound as the original word. Thus:

The combination of two letters and one number 'Gr8' replaces 'great'.

d) General text. Many words which have no common abbreviation are shortened by the removal of vowels. The reader is obliged to interpret a string of consonants:

Keyboard becomes kybrd.
Dictionary becomes dctnry.

e) Set phrases. Many established phrases have emerged, represented usually by the first letter of each word to create the abbreviated compound. Thus:

'At the moment' is rendered as 'atm'.
'By the way' is rendered as 'btw'.

There are many examples of different words which use the same abbreviations. For example, the abbreviation 'lol' could mean either 'laugh out loud' or 'lots of love'. The significance of these abbreviations is often open to interpretation, depending upon the context of the relationship between the sender of the message and its recipient. For example, the text message:

Ttyl, lol would probably mean 'talk to you later, lots of love' as opposed to 'talk to you later, laugh out loud.'

In a similar vein, the abbreviated message 'omg, lol' would probably mean 'Oh my God! Laugh our loud!' as opposed to 'Oh my God! Lots of love.'

It is precisely this lack of definition critics cite as a reason not to use textese.

f) Other uses. The use of textese is not merely confined to SMS communications. Its use is rife in other forms of electronic communication, such as chat forums, social networking sites like Twitter and even in email.

The use of textese is all well and good for the younger generation; to some extent I even applaud the initiative inasmuch as its use drastically cuts phone bills footed by the exasperated parents of teenagers across the globe, myself included. Furthermore, any measure made to reduce the profits of the vampiric, corporate titans of the communications industry is a balm to the soul. TWTS!

However, akin to the advent of electronic calculators of my generation, while these advances are undoubtedly useful to humankind, basic skills of literacy and numeracy are vital for the survival of the individual in the world; in some cases, literally.

A study made by the University of Western Sydney in Australia found that out of a sample of 220 high achieving registered nurses who were short listed for entry into a graduate nurse programme at a Melbourne hospital, 58% were unable to accurately calculate eleven drug doses commonly performed in clinical practice. This is an alarming statistic.

Nonetheless, abbreviations have - in one form or another - been around for a very long time. Would it be so absurd to compare ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics with the aforementioned use of the rebus in modern SMS communication? The principle is precisely the same.

Even the much abused apostrophe is a relatively recent phenomenon, entering the language around the 17th century after the demise of the Old English genitive case, being first transcribed as an 'es' ending before morphing into a single 's' then appearing as an apostrophe plus 's'.

Some studies have even indicated that the use of textese helps to improve literacy skills amongst the young. In his study "Txtng: the Gr8 Db8" (Oxford), linguist David Crystal makes the point that texting makes young people better communicators, not worse. He states:

"Before you can write abbreviated forms effectively and play with them, you need to have a sense of how the sounds of your language relate to the letters."

The same study also found that the children with the highest scores in literacy skills were also the first to have been given their own cell phones. Furthermore, it can be argued that textese is also good for the unity of the English language; there are very few differences between the two major conventions of English in its textese form.

That is not to say there is no place for strict instruction in the traditional acquisition of grammar and punctuation; there is no substitute for a sound foundation in the building blocks of language. What you do with it once you have acquired it is ultimately up to you, as long as you respect the appropriate convention and forum in which your choice of expression is aired.

WTF may be an acceptable enquiry to a peer, but would not be an appropriate method of expression, for example, in the form of an inquiry regarding a low mark awarded for the use of textese abbreviations in the examinations hall. A question of horses for courses, if you will, or the dilemma facing a drinker of a glass of Austrian wine; it may be perfectly potable, but don't let it get onto your hands.

As for the older generation, in much the same way as computers and other technology have been partially adopted by this sector of society; the use of such innovations will be inherently limited to their actual utility. I, for one, will not be bothered acquiring textese, nor will I be using it in my communications with anyone. If that means I am unable to understand the message of my fellow communicant, then so be it; it is incumbent upon he or she to get the message across in a comprehensible fashion, especially if I am expected to act upon it.

Which brings me back to the title and perhaps the only thing the Rev. Dr himself and I have in common. As far as I am concerned, as it was in the beginning, is now and forever shall be. There is only one possible interpretation for the abbreviation of LOL:

Loyal Orange Lodge!

David Kennedy
Member profile of David Kennedy - Writing4all