Why is abbreviation such a long word?
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Because our short words come from German and French and describe things that farmers and sailors and priests and their Norman overlords were doing and working with in the Middle Ages.
The only one of those groups who needed a word for "a shorter way to write something" were the priests, who were the only ones who wrote much of anything at all. Since Chinese characters developed in China, not Italy, they chose to use Latin in order to make themselves understood across Europe's variety of local spellings and languages.
Latin doesn't cotton with short terms: it uses a welter of prefixes and suffixes to get its point across. We still use the Latin term abbreviation because shortening isn't much shorter and has other uses andwordshortening is even longer.
The only one of those groups who needed a word for "a shorter way to write something" were the priests, who were the only ones who wrote much of anything at all. Since Chinese characters developed in China, not Italy, they chose to use Latin in order to make themselves understood across Europe's variety of local spellings and languages.
Latin doesn't cotton with short terms: it uses a welter of prefixes and suffixes to get its point across. We still use the Latin term abbreviation because shortening isn't much shorter and has other uses andwordshortening is even longer.
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a short form of a word or phrase..
This list contains the most common abbreviations used in the OED. Click on a letter to see the abbreviations beginning with that letter.
Most of the words listed are only abbreviated in certain contexts, esp. when used as a subject label or in a work title.
This list contains the most common abbreviations used in the OED. Click on a letter to see the abbreviations beginning with that letter.
Most of the words listed are only abbreviated in certain contexts, esp. when used as a subject label or in a work title.
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