acronym

[Prof. Roland Sussex]

On acronyms, intialisms and related things:

In Russian and many E. European languages under Communism there was a
vogue for formations like kolkhoz "collective farm" from KOLlektivnoe
XOZjajstvo. "PanAm" is in this category, also Comintern. The standard
term was "stump compounds". "Stump" is useful, since it gets away from
definitions of the syllable: one often takes CVC rather than CV to clip
the first component of the compound.

"Clipping" is another relevant term, but another can of worms.

Roly Sussex
The University of Queensland

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org