Clipped Words We Use Every Day

I wrote an article last summer for this blog about “clipped” words—longer words that are commonly shortened—and how to spell them. It’s easy to see how many multi-syllable words came to be abbreviated, because that’s the nature of informal communications. It’s is how we talk, and the spellings of most clipped forms are straightforward. For example, we obviously get phone from telephone, photo from photograph, and bio from biography—all easy to understand and simple to spell.

In some instances, the spelling of a clipped form changes based on how the word is pronounced, how it sounds to the ear. For example, the clipped form of refrigerator is spelled fridge (not frig), favorite becomes fave (not fav), microphone is shortened to mike (not mic), and bicycle and tricycle become bike and trike (not bic and tric).

We often don’t realize how many common, everyday words are actually abbreviated forms of multi-syllable words. So are you up for a little quiz? Do you know the full word from which we get the following twelve clipped forms? Some have been part of the English vernacular for 150–200 years. (I can assure you, I didn’t know a few of these myself.) Answers are below.^[1]

1. bus
2. cello
3. fan (as in baseball fan)
4. pants
5. prep
6. pub
7. quad (as in the enclosed outdoor square typically found on a school campus)
8. quotes
9. specs
10. taxi
11. typo
12. zoo

Well, how did you do? Did you know about bus, for instance, or cello, or zoo?

A long time ago, linguists, lexicographers (people who compile dictionaries for a living), and English teachers frowned on the use of any abbreviated forms, but the practice is widely accepted today. As in the case of all word choices, however, for the purpose of effective communication, clarity is the number one rule. It’s best to spell out any word that our readers might not readily understand. Δ

[1]Answers: 1. omnibus; 2. violoncello; 3. fanatic; 4. pantaloons; 5. prepare or preparatory; 6. public house; 7. quadrangle; 8. quotation marks or quotations; 9. spectacles (i.e., eyeglasses) or specifications; 10. taximeter cab; 11. typographer or typographical (error); 12. zoological garden. Sources: R. W. Burchfield’s The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 3^rd edition, p. 3; Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11^th edition.

© 2017 by Dean Christensen. All rights reserved.

Author: Dean Christensen

Educator, copyeditor, writer, baseball bug, word lover, book hound, guitar picker, classical music aficionado, classic rock 'n' roll and movie buff, sinner, saint, former this, used-to-be that, and future who-knows-what. Every day is an adventure in learning how to make the world a better place--grammatically, anyway. View all posts by Dean Christensen