By deciphering the abbreviation. What is an Abbreviation? What does Abbreviation mean?

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

APR - Asia-Pacific region

APEC – Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization

Benelux – customs union of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg

BUSSR - former USSR

WB – World Bank

WTO – World Trade Organization

GDP – gross domestic product

GNP – domestic national product

WHO – World Health Organization

UPU – Universal Postal Union

VT – foreign trade

VEP – foreign economic policy

VES – foreign economic relations

GATT – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

EFTA – European Free Trade Association

EBRD – European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Euratom – European Atomic Energy Community

Euro is the single European currency

EUR – single internal market

EMU – European Monetary Union

EEA – Single European Act

EU – European Union

ECSC – European Coal and Steel Community

EEC – Economic Commission for Europe

EEC – European Economic Community

AI – foreign investment

CES – Commission of European Unions

IDA – International Development Association

MASICHI - International Agency for Insurance of Foreign Private Investments at the IBRD

MB – international business

IBRD – International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

IMF – International Monetary Fund

M/d - international

IDC – international capital movement

MDRT – international labor market

MERCOSUR is a South American market uniting Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay since 1991.

ILO – international labor organization

ME – world economy

MX - world economy

ITU – International Union telecommunications

MVKO – international monetary relations

MR - world market

MRI – international division of labor

IFC – international financial corporation

NAFTA – North American Free Trade Area (USA, Canada, Mexico)

VAT – value added tax

R&D – research and development work

NIS – Newly Industrialized Countries

STP – scientific and technological progress

STR – scientific and technological revolution

UAE - United Arab Emirates

OPEC – Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

OECD – Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

PE – direct investment

UNDP - United Nations Development Program

PRS - industrialized countries

RS – developing countries

RSFSR – Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

SDR – Special Drawing Rights

FZPE – Free Export Promotion Zone

Hard currency is a freely convertible currency

CMEC – Council of Ministers of the European Union

PCA – Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the Russian Federation and the EU

PSA – Production Sharing Agreement

CMEA - Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

SEZ – free economic zones

TNCs - transnational corporations

TPK – territorial production complexes

FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FIG – financial and industrial groups

CAOC - Central American Common Market

Central Bank – Central Bank

CEE – Central and Eastern Europe

EAN – economically active population

ECA - United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

EXA - United Nations Economic Commission for Western Asia

ECLAC – United Nations Economic Commission for Latvia. America and the Caribbean

ECOSOC - UN Economic and Social Council

ECU is a special European monetary unit of account

ES – economic system

ESCAP - United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

South Africa – South African Republic

UNIDO - United Nations Industrial Development Commission for Developing Countries

UNICEF – United Nations Children's Fund

UNEP – United Nations Environment Program

UNESCO – Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

EXW, CIF, CIP, CPT, FAS, FCA, DDU, DDP, DES, DAF - basic conditions for the supply of goods in foreign trade.

With the oblique case form of a noun. In English this type is completely unused due to its absence in English. the language of indirect cases as such (except Possessive Case). Chapter 2. Abbreviation in the word-formation system in English. 2.1 Structural and semantic classifications of English abbreviations and their place in the word-formation system of the English language...

Without imposing on your reader any new and incomprehensible words instead of abbreviations. Conclusion In this work, some features of the translation of abbreviations and abbreviations from English into Russian were investigated. As a result of the work done, the author came to the following conclusions. In this work, the characteristics of abbreviated lexical units are presented, the concept of abbreviation is defined as...

Tonsil operation) ‘removal of tonsils’; Zondek (← Zondek test) ‘Zondek test’. So, when translating English medical abbreviations, you should first of all focus on the branch of medicine in the context of which this abbreviation is used. This is especially true for homonymous abbreviations. When translating English medical abbreviations, it is impossible to do without terminological dictionaries, ...

3. Collect language material from periodicals. 4. Classify language material into thematic groups. 5. Determine the types of abbreviations in the collected language material. The object of the work is A. in modern Russian (based on the media). Research methods: 1. Theoretical (study existing literature on the topic). 2. Analytical (analysis A). 3. Synthetic (summarize observations...

Hello friends!

Today I sat down at my PC, went to ICQ, and there was a new message flashing in the DM, a friend sent me a JPG. But I don’t need a photo, I write to him: DOCX are coming! He doesn’t want to, he says that JPEG is better, or, at worst, PNG. And I told him: only in Word, IMHO! Just ask the site admin. He asked. The admin answered him: “PPKS. MB RAR or ZIP” – what kind of garbage is that?! I studied at TSNGU, I don’t need to push myself here!

I hope I won’t need to decipher the essence of this correspondence for you. Or is it still necessary? How are you with your knowledge of abbreviations, huh? Do you think it’s necessary to know them or not?

I think you’ve already guessed what we’ll be talking about today: what abbreviations are and how to use them correctly. And also a list of examples, both widely used and more rare. And my assistant, an expert, linguist and specialist in different languages, will help us with this.

We owe the appearance of this beautiful word to the language of science - Latin. It was from there that the word ‘brevis’ - “short” - migrated to the Italian language. Where it underwent a change, it grew the prefix ‘ab-‘, lost the small ending ‘-s’ and acquired the long ending ‘-atura’. And in this form it received a very specific meaning: “abbreviation in writing and printing.” And since writing and printing create a flow of information, it is clear that we are talking about words.

History of the abbreviation

The main meaning of the abbreviation is the transfer of more information with less means and in a shorter time. In ancient times, when books were written by hand and it was hard work, abbreviating the spelling of frequently used words was a significant relief in the work. In the English language, this shortened spelling of the word for Christmas - Xmas, which has become a shortened version of the full word Christmas, remains very popular.

Also, abbreviations of words were often used by craftsmen and artisans in those days when professional knowledge was passed on by inheritance, to encrypt secrets in order to protect them from competitors.

The next period when abbreviations were relevant and useful was their use for telegraphy. It was the fastest way to transmit written messages from the beginning of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, and in the USSR until the 80s. Even in personal telegraph messages of ordinary people, abbreviations were used for punctuation marks - ТЧК (dot), ZPT (comma) and others, since punctuation marks were used for special encoding, but only letters and numbers were supposed to be present in messages.

In more professional fields, where messages had to be sent frequently and regularly, such as weather reports to pilots of departing passenger aircraft, abbreviations of regularly used terms were widely used.

Telegraphic abbreviations of the English language became the basis for the creation of the American Standard Code Table (ASCII Symbols), with the help of which computers recognize printed characters - both commonly used and rarely encountered.

As you can see, this is a fairly widely used and convenient form of abbreviation. It is clear that its use is still present in our lives on all levels, from business language to everyday shortening of words that are too long.

Abbreviating words in everyday life

For a long time in the Russian language, according to the rule, only nouns were abbreviated. However, the era of the Internet has arrived. Chopped words from written English slang quickly burst into our language, our programmers and advanced users began to urgently invent their own - and now more or less widely used set expressions and phrases are being abbreviated.

How are abbreviations obtained?

We come across letter abbreviations quite often in business documents and when mentioning various organizations. As a rule, it hides the name of an institution, organization or position consisting of several words.

So many of them have already been invented that now anyone who wants to create a new name must first check the list of existing abbreviations so as not to repeat themselves. Although not in all cases it is possible to come up with something original, the result is a coincidence: GPU - State Legal Administration of the President of the Russian Federation and GPU - state environmental institution.

The shorter the abbreviation, the more likely the match. Therefore, along with the laconic and well-known MSU (Moscow State University), you can also find such a monster: GNUVNIVIPFiT - State Scientific Institution All-Russian Research Veterinary Institute of Pathology, Pharmacology and Therapy.

Well, how did you manage to pronounce it the first time?

I think almost everyone asks the question: why invent such a thing. The answer is simple: the abbreviations of institutions are often artistically inscribed in the logos of these very institutions. Therefore, another role of the letter abbreviation is graphic.

How are words abbreviated?

So, what are some ways to shorten words? Some people believe that only by the initial letters. However, this is only one way to create a shortened and simplified name. It is called an abbreviation. This is the most widely used option for creating official abbreviations for organizations. FAS, FSIN, STSI, GBOU - some abbreviations are constantly heard, some you have to puzzle over.

We'll talk about decoding later, but for now let's move on to the second method: when words are shortened not to the first letter, but to its semantic part. This is how the system administrator turns into a system administrator, and the State Department into the State Department. The same type of abbreviation includes the method of abbreviating only the first word, which is attached to the full second word: commanders, head of department - this is easier to understand, isn’t it?

The method of abbreviating words according to individual, not always the main parts of words, was widely practiced in the newly created country of workers and peasants - the new government strived for innovation in everything. This often gave rise to very funny abbreviations. You can read in more detail about the vigorous activity of the unsinkable bureaucrats of that time in the imperishable works of I. Ilf and E. Petrov, and as an example I will give you this masterpiece that came from the pen of officials of the young people's republic: Vserabis (All-Union Trade Union of Artists).

A minute to train your brain! Decipher the following abbreviation from the same era: Zamkompomorde.

But the ideas for creating abbreviations didn't end there. Restless abbreviators tried to confuse normal people and created... mixed abbreviations, when some words are abbreviated to the first letter, but one word is not, for example: GlavAPU, Gulag, KamAZ.

Do you think that's it now? Ha, of course! At the beginning of the twentieth century, abbreviations were widespread, which took the beginning from one word and the end from the second. Most of these abbreviations have practically fallen into disuse, but you have no doubt met and used some without even realizing that they were abbreviations. Take, for example, the well-known “moped”. It turns out that the formative words “MOTO” and “bicycle” were cleverly hidden in this word. That is, a bicycle equipped with a motor.

Another method of abbreviation is purely graphic, because it is used only in writing: when a word is shortened to the initial and last letters: o-v (island), pr-t (prospect). Students often use these types of abbreviations when taking notes in lectures. However, students do this in a way that only they understand, and sometimes even in a way that is incomprehensible. But the generally accepted abbreviations are clear to everyone who bothers to remember them or look in the dictionary.

In the same way, but only up to the first letters keywords abbreviated when writing units of measures, weights, information, and banknotes. Everyone knows that kg means kilogram, km means kilometer, and MB means megabyte. Some abbreviations are so familiar that they have already begun to be pronounced in the same abbreviated form - for example, “give me a couple of kegs of potatoes” instead of “a couple of kilograms.” Unlike abbreviations, most of these accepted international designations are written with a small letter.

As everyone who deals with computers knows, in addition to written abbreviations, there are also colloquial abbreviations in which gigabytes become “gigs”.

Concerning modern methods creating new abbreviations, then strict rules relate only to the official formation of abbreviations from initial letters, because this is how names are officially encrypted at the state level. Then they are entered into a single register, recorded and circulars are issued for different organizations - and other officials should know what is hidden behind this or that abbreviation.

So, to summarize: there are several ways to form abbreviations:

by first letters (usually for phrases of three or more words);
on the basics of words (two, very rarely three);
mixed, combining both roots or individual parts of words and letters;
connected from the initial and final parts of words.

Pronunciation, stress and spelling

Okay, now you think you know everything, and you can shorten any tricky name. And nothing like that. This would create a lot of confusion, because many letter abbreviations seem to be the same, although their meanings are radically different.

Would you like to go to the main store of Moscow (also GUM) instead of the building of the humanities faculties of Moscow University (GUM)? And this is still quite real. The only difference is that the store got its name back in 1921 and has long been officially lost, since now it is no longer an abbreviation, but a brand, preserved in memory of a previously existing abbreviation (State Department Store). But the university building received the official and current abbreviation of its name in 2005.

Although bureaucratic minds sometimes give rise to such monstrous reductions as, for example, GUZMOMOTSPBSPDIZ (State Health Institution of the Moscow Region, Moscow regional center on the Prevention and Control of AIDS and Infectious Diseases), they are not very memorable. And they certainly are not used in conversation, unlike the MKAD (Moscow Ring Road), which Muscovites actively use in everyday communication. Besides, you also have to write them! And when it comes to practice, a number of questions arise:

How to pronounce?
Where to put the emphasis?
Is it possible to decline it according to the rules of the Russian language?
How to spell abbreviations correctly?
Why are some abbreviations written separately?

Let's look into this.

How to pronounce the letter abbreviation

Of course, there are rules that describe how to correctly or incorrectly pronounce these man-made abbreviations. However, to be honest, all the rules come from the euphony and natural sound of a letter combination or word for the native language, in this case Russian. Therefore, in each rule there will be forms that are pronounced according to the rules, but there will also be exceptions. But you need to know the rules - at least in order not to get confused in a new and unfamiliar letter abbreviation.

If the abbreviation consists of several consonant letters, then it is simple; it is pronounced according to how these letters are called in the alphabet: GDP - ve-ve-pe, VTSSPS - ve-tse-es-pe-es.
The presence of a vowel at the beginning or end of an abbreviation does not change the situation: most often such abbreviations are pronounced according to the alphabetical names of the letters: EU (e-es), GMO - (ge-em-o). Exceptions from of this rule: Media and SKA. Also, the well-known abbreviation of the name of the country - USA - is not pronounced according to the rules: it is pronounced either as the syllable -ssa, or as se-she-a, which, as you understand, does not convey the alphabetical name of these letters in the Russian language.
The presence of one or more vowels in a three-letter or more abbreviation allows you to pronounce it like an ordinary word: SES, MFA, FIFA, UN.

Emphasis in abbreviations

It’s good if it’s a simple abbreviation with one vowel, the emphasis will automatically fall on it. But during pronunciation, vowels creep in even in abbreviations consisting only of consonants. Otherwise there would be no way to pronounce them. And if vowels appear, then the emphasis must be placed somewhere. And where should we put it when saying this? compound abbreviation, like the Komsomol?

According to the rules, the emphasis in an abbreviation formed from the abbreviation of Russian words is placed on the last syllable. With foreign abbreviations that have not been translated into Russian, but simply retained the literal meaning, it is more difficult: how to correctly pronounce NATO, NASA and the like, you need to look in the dictionary.

Gender and declension

A feature of the Russian language is the addition of suffixes to convey belonging to the masculine, feminine or neuter gender, as well as to create a case form - declension. Does this rule apply to abbreviations? In case the letter abbreviations end in a vowel, they remain unchanged, because even if the abbreviation sounds like a word, you cannot change the last letter without losing the meaning.

Attention! Under no circumstances should one say: “FIFA management” or “UNESCO made a decision.”

It’s another matter when there is one or more consonants at the end: then the inflection form is added to the abbreviation without losing the semantic parts. That is why such constructions as “the bride and groom left the registry office” are completely permitted.

Difficulty reading abbreviations

A person can, without wanting to, remember how to pronounce this or that abbreviation, simply by periodically hearing it mentioned in the news, advertising, and films. But with speech synthesizers that convert texts into audio and back, the situation is more complicated: the developers of such programs for the Russian language have yet to successfully teach them to recognize and correctly read abbreviations of varying degrees of complexity.

Perhaps the problem will be solved by adding a dictionary of abbreviations to the database - then the program, having detected a set of capital letters in the text, will simply substitute how the abbreviation is deciphered. As for new and unfamiliar abbreviations, if you don’t want to get into trouble, it’s better to familiarize yourself with the pronunciation rules.

How to spell an abbreviation correctly

Even if you have learned to correctly use some difficult-to-pronounce abbreviations in speech, questions may still arise when you have to write them. And since most often you have to write them in business documents, making mistakes is not a very good solution.

So here are some basic writing rules.

Abbreviations formed from the first letters are written with a capital letter if it is an abbreviation of its own name, for example: MGU (Moscow State University).
Letter abbreviations are written with a small letter if the abbreviation hides not its own name, but a generalized one. But there are few of them - and, as a rule, these are abbreviations that gradually from their own names became generalized, which means they began to be written in small letters: university (higher educational institution), homeless (without a fixed place of residence).
If the abbreviation is based on parts of a word that are the name, it is written with a capital letter only at the beginning, like an ordinary proper name, for example, Ministry of Health (Ministry of Health). If the abbreviation is not a personal name, then it is written with a small letter, for example, head of department (head of department).
An abbreviation of a mixed type is difficult to write and quite quickly the peculiarities of the spelling are forgotten; over time, such an abbreviation begins to be written most often in completely capital letters, as, for example, KamAZ is no longer considered a mistake to write KAMAZ.

Important! There is no period after abbreviations!

This general rules, however, in order not to make a mistake and write the abbreviation correctly, it is best to use a dictionary or the Internet. Widely used abbreviations can be easily suggested, but it is best to look for rarely encountered forms on the official websites of the relevant institutions.

Why are some written together and some separately?

This question arises when you see abbreviations like: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The answer is simple: like individual words, different abbreviations are written separately, since in full form they form a phrase from two different encrypted formations: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (institution) of the Russian Federation (state). Each part of such an abbreviation phrase can be used separately: for example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is often mentioned in the news, without each time specifying that we are talking about a domestic ministry. And the abbreviation of the official name of the state can be used with any other ministry.

Use of abbreviations in highly specialized areas

In medicine

In addition to business language, abbreviations are widely used in areas where different terms are constantly used. Speaking about this, we cannot ignore the use of abbreviations in medicine; in terms of the number of terms, the science of the human body and its treatment easily rivals jurisprudence.

Some abbreviations are widely known to both doctors and patients, such as gastrointestinal tract (gastrointestinal tract), ARVI (acute respiratory viral infection) or AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), others are known only to specialists, and the decoding of individual abbreviations even doctors look into thick reference books.

These abbreviations are used in maintaining medical records - cards, sick leave, prescriptions, extracts - along with Latin terms. Even if you don’t take into account the terrible doctor’s handwriting, not everyone can decipher the often mysterious letters. And since these documents are not about something extraneous, but about health - either ours or our loved ones - sometimes we try to figure out how serious the diagnosis is written there.

Previously, it was more difficult - interested parties had to seek clarification from a doctor they knew, if there was one.

Now we have access to truly inexhaustible sources on the Internet, available at any time.

If you don’t find what you need, it doesn’t matter - in addition to ready-made articles, there are also thematic forums where everyone can share the necessary information. True, it is far from a fact that a more or less knowledgeable specialist will give you advice, but you can always get at least an idea in which direction to look.

For air transport

Based on the principle of abbreviations, special forms of coding for airports around the world have been created by ICAO and IATA, which are used by all interested parties, from air carriers to mechanics and ticket cashiers.

A unique code assigned to each airport instantly informs necessary information without further ado: in what country and what city is the right place located.

Sometimes they are called airport abbreviations, but strictly speaking, they are not such, since they often have a very distant resemblance to the name of both the airport itself and the city in which it is located. Why is this happening? Because the code must be unique and not coincide with any other. Additionally, cities can change names, but codes change much more slowly. For example, according to the international IATA system, the code of St. Petersburg is still consonant with the name of this city in Soviet times, Leningrad - LED.

The ICAO structure is much more universal: according to these codes, the first letter designates the continent or part of it, the second corresponds to the country, the third and fourth are intended to designate the airport. For large countries, the second part of the code consists of three digits.

In military affairs

The military sphere is also replete with various abbreviations of long and confusing terms, since accuracy and brevity in this area is not a whim, but a necessity - often the count is not even in minutes, but in fractions of seconds.

Some military abbreviations are known not only by former and current military personnel or conscripts, but also by absolutely civilian, peaceful people who are far from this sphere. For example, most people will not be surprised, but will immediately understand what is being said when they hear: “Look, an armored personnel carrier is coming.” And much less often, instead of this abbreviated name, you will hear its decoding - armored personnel carrier.

It is clear that each branch of the military has its own specific abbreviations for weapons and service equipment. In addition, since the army does not exist in its own separate world, topographical designations or abbreviations for defense enterprises are widely used in the army lexicon. The fate of the entire military campaign may depend on the ability to use them, along with the skills of navigating the map and the terrain. His own name, which has already become a household name, is still in use - Ivan Susanin: a patriot who led the enemy army into remote swamps.

In technical documentation

Well, how can we do without abbreviations in technology – from specialized to household? Of course, we sometimes come across technical abbreviations more often than we would like. Any technical data sheet, even for such an inexpensive product as radio headphones, will necessarily include a couple of clever abbreviations that are understandable to a specialist, but not to the average user. And abbreviations in passports of prefabricated and complex products can even drive an inexperienced beginner to despair.

But it’s never too late to learn, and if you approach the issue seriously and thoughtfully, you can soon begin to understand areas that you never thought about before.

Abbreviations in English, from English and other languages

Separately, I would like to consider the abbreviations that came to us from English as the language of international communication. A modern specialist cannot be considered such if he does not know foreign language, most often in English, since English-language terminology penetrates us in all areas. If you want to learn English, and even on your own at home, then read on.

It is clear that all the above-described areas of application of abbreviations are also filled with English abbreviations, each of them is a separate topic for a new large article.

Abbreviations in computer and Internet technologies

However, I want to pay a little more attention to the field of computer technology - although Russia is now rapidly developing this area, in the USA the development began and has advanced much further. In fact, it was there that the basic standards of modern IT technologies were set. It is clear that they are inextricably linked with the English language.

Since you and I are also related to this area, let's take a closer look at what and when we are dealing with.

And it all starts with the well-known beginning of the email address of almost all sites: www is an abbreviation for the expression World Wide Web ().

And if you pay attention to the final letters in the email address of any site, there is also a certain encoding hidden there, often an abbreviation indicating the country.

In a clever way, this is called a “national domain”, which is allocated for a specific country. You've probably come across sites ending in us or ru. The first domain name refers to sites located in the USA, and the second, I think, does not need to be explained. And if you don’t know what a domain is, but really want to, read.

Just like the code for airports, it must be unique and not coincide with existing ones. Therefore, the winners are the countries that received it earlier - such an abbreviation will be closer to the name of their country. For example, little Laos came to the rescue before the former republics of the USSR, and therefore bears the domain name la, while for Latvia there remains only the very vaguely reminiscent name of their country lv, because lt was received by neighboring Lithuania.

In addition to national domain names, there are also universal ones, such as com and net. But I won't re-examine which sites use them here.

Now you can test yourself to understand the story that I told you at the very beginning.

Abbreviations are also extensions that appear at the end of the name of a computer file after a period and indicate different types of files. We will look at the most common types of extensions that an Internet user usually deals with:

for text documents and tables, the most used extensions are doc (after the release of Windows 7, the docx extension came into play), txt, xls;
drawings, photos and moving pictures from several consecutive images are denoted by the extensions jpg (jpeg), bmp, tif, gif;
sound files are hidden behind the extensions mp3, mpeg, wav;
videos can most often be found with the extension avi, mp4, flv, mov, mpg;
zip, rar, 7z extensions are used for archiving;
programs or applications that need to be installed in order to gain access to its capabilities (as well as viruses that inexperienced users inadvertently install on their computers) are most often hidden behind the exe extension;
The html extension is intended for the Internet and can only be opened using Internet browsers;
the ppt (pptx) extension is intended for presentations created using Microsoft PowerPoint and open for editing, but a file with the pps (ppsx) extension is intended only for viewing the finished presentation;
a file with a pdf extension is universal, as it is suitable for different operating systems; it often contains texts with pictures, scans of various instructions and books.

Of course, these are not all file formats, but only the most unified in the computer field. Often, for various needs, program developers use their own unique extensions, which are used only in a specific program and nowhere else.

Important! The extension is only an indicator of what kind of file is hidden behind it. Replacing extension letters manually will not turn text into video, or video into audio; such intervention will only make the file unreadable, which means you will ruin it.

Most users do not know the origin of the abbreviation names of these extensions, just as the vast majority of people do not know why a light bulb works. Yes, this is not necessary, it is enough just to know what they mean and what they are used for. Moreover, progress continues. For example, with the proliferation of tablets and Androids, new file formats have emerged that are compatible with these technical devices.

English abbreviations used on the Internet for communication

But there is probably no area where English has become so deeply integrated into our daily lives as in social networks. And cuts are no exception, since Americans are fans of saving time.

There was no trace of the Internet yet, but they had already shortened the word Okey to two letters – ok, and the name of one of their favorite holidays, Christmas, to a shortened version – Xmas. So you can imagine how famously they abbreviate any more or less regularly used phrases in written communication. Among them you can find OMG, LOL and WTF - I think for most of my readers these abbreviations do not need to be deciphered.

However, this is not all. If, when encountering such a masterpiece of bureaucratic thought as the GNUVNIVPFiT (State Scientific Institution All-Russian Research Veterinary Institute of Pathology, Pharmacology and Therapy), you think that only the mind of a bureaucrat can generate such a thing, then you are mistaken. When communicating with a foreigner online, you may well come up with the following casual question: AWGTHTGTTA? Don't rack your brains, you were just asked “Are We Going To Have To Go Through This Again?”

Interesting: do you know that in addition to the abbreviation IMHO (IMHO - in my humble opinion), which has become firmly established in Russian online slang, there are two more options in English: IMO (in my opinion) and IMSHO (in my not so humble opinion), which express varying degrees confidence in your own opinion.

AFAIK	As Far As I Know
ADN	Any Day Now
ASAP	As Soon As Possible
B	Be
BRB	Be Right Back
BTW	By The Way
CU or CUL or CUL8R	See You, See You Later
C.Y.O.	See You Online
DIIK	Damned If I Know
FAQ	Frequently Asked Question
FWIW	For What It's Worth
FYI	For Your Information
GD&R	Grinning, ducking & running (usually left at the end of a digging message)
GIWIST	Gee I Wish I'd Said That
IAC	In Any Case (also IAE - In Any Event)
IANAL	I Am Not A Lawyer
IC	I See
IOW	In Other Words
IR	In Real Life
IYO	In Your Opinion
I3D	In 3D
JIC	Just In Case
JSNM	Just Stark Naked Magic
FITB	Fill In The Blank…
KOW	Knock On Wood
LOL	Laughing Out Loud
L8R	Later
LAB&TYD	Life's A Bitch & Then You Die
Ob.	Obligatory
OIC	Oh, I See
OTOH	On The Other Hand
PMJI or PMFJI	Pardon Me For Jumping In
POV	Point Of View
PPN	Programmer project number
R.I.P.	Rest In Peace
ROFL	Rolling On Floor Laughing
ROTFL	Rolling On The Floor Laughing
RSN	Real Soon Now
RTFM	Read The Fine Manual
SNAFU	Situation Normal, All Fucked Up
SYSOP	System Operator
TANJ	There Ain't No Justice
TANSTAAFL	There Ain't No Such Thing as A Free Lunch
TBD	To Be Determined
TIA	Thanks In Advance
TPTB	The Powers That Be
TTBOMK	To The Best Of My Knowledge
TTYL	Talk To You Later
YA...	Yet another…. (as in YAA – yet another acronym)
U	You
VIP	Very Important Person
W8	Wait
10X	Thanks

Correct and incorrect foreign abbreviations

Often foreign, but widely used abbreviations are also used in the Russian-speaking environment. Sometimes such names are translated, for example, OSCE (organization for security and cooperation in Europe) is originally called Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe - (OSCE). The same applies to the USA (United States of America), which in English is called USA (United States of America).

However, this principle is not always preserved when mastering abbreviations. So the NATO alliance remained unchanged - this abbreviation was transferred to the Cyrillic alphabet without changes from the Latin alphabet: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Perhaps because of the already existing euphony of the English abbreviation or because of Russia’s non-involvement in this organization. Be that as it may, whether state policy changes or not, the name is already well established in the Russian language in this version.

It would be unfair not to mention at least a couple of words other languages, which also make, albeit a smaller, contribution to the development of the Russian language. Did you know that the well-known name of the pharmaceutical ointment “Vaseline” is also an abbreviation invented by the pharmacist who invented it? It consists of the first syllable of the German word for water (Wasser), the Greek word for oil (eleion) and the suffix in Latin meaning belonging.

As you can see, a person who knows the origin and method of abbreviations can consider himself encyclopedically educated and can both solve and compose crossword puzzles. They also often contain abbreviations as encrypted words.

Dictionary and list of abbreviations

I am not presumptuous enough to call my article a complete and comprehensive study of acronyms. Having paid attention only to frequently occurring and widespread abbreviations and methods of their creation in general, I have left out of our attention the less used in everyday life or narrowly professional words and terms. However, to make your search easier, I will suggest some useful resources.

The most comprehensive source on the Internet is the dictionary of abbreviations sokr.ru.

Explanations of English abbreviations can be found on the website acronymfinder.com.

And here is a page with a list of medical abbreviations on Wikipedia: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_abbreviations

A complete list of all domain zones in the world - http://www.general-domain.ru/katalog/domennee-zone-mira.php

Airport codes, according to ICAO - http://airspot.ru/catalogue/airports/icao.

Examples of famous abbreviations

And in the end, I want to introduce you to a small selection of abbreviations that are common now, as well as in the recent past, which includes their correct spelling, meaning and translation.

CNG filling stations – automobile gas filling compressor stations

ANO is an autonomous non-profit organization

BDSM – transliteration from English bondage/discipline (BD) and dominance/submission (DS)

BMW – (from German Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, - “Bavarian Motor Works”) car brand

BRICS is a group of five partner countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa

GDP – gross domestic product

Komsomol - All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League or Komsomol - according to the last three words

VDGO – indoor gas equipment

Higher professional education – 1. Higher professional education; 2. All-Union Pioneer Organization; 3. Vladimir Production Association; 4. Department of the Presidential Security; 5. Paramilitary fire brigade; 6. wet industrial waste; 7. straightening, tamping and finishing machine; 8. out-of-furnace processing (steel); 9. Vnukovo production association civil aviation; 10. internal contracting organization; 11. subsurface irrigation; 12. Military consumer society; 13. malicious software; 14. All-Russian Production Association.

VTB – External Trade Bank

university – higher education institution

All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions

GMO – genetically modified organism

Traffic Police - State Traffic Inspectorate

GBOU – State Budgetary Educational Institution

State Traffic Safety Inspectorate - State Road Safety Inspectorate

Glavkoverh (Supreme Commander-in-Chief in Russia during the First World War)

GLONASS – Global Navigation Satellite System

GO - civil defense

GOST - state standard

GRBS is the main manager of budget funds

GTO - “Ready for Labor and Defense” - a sports training program for the population in the USSR

HPP – state power plant

GRES – state district power plant

ddt – 1. Road traffic accident; 2. Insecticide (dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane)

DNA is a macromolecule containing the genetic code, its name is deoxyribonucleic acid

DOSAAF - a public-state association in the USSR (voluntary society for the assistance of the army, aviation and navy)

Preschool educational institution - children's (or preschool) educational institution

DTI - additional technological index, used to designate the transfer of official mail

EU – European Union

UES – Unified Energy System

Civil registry office - state civil registration authorities

Spare parts - spare parts, tools, accessories

TIN – taxpayer identification number

Inspectorate of the Federal Tax Service

CASCO – comprehensive car insurance, except liability

KIPA – instrumentation and automation

Checkpoint - checkpoint

KGB - Committee state security

Laser - (from the English LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) - light amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

LGBT - lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender - designation for people of non-traditional sexual orientation

Ministry of Internal Affairs - Ministry of Internal Affairs

NATO – (from the English North Atlantic Treaty Organization) North Atlantic Alliance

MGUPI – Moscow State University of Instrument Engineering and Informatics

MDF - (from the English. Medium Density Fiberboard) dMedium Density Fiberboard

MIREA – obsolete. Name of the Moscow Institute of Technology, Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation

morgue – place of final registration of citizens (20s)

MOU - municipal educational institution

MRI – magnetic resonance therapy

MREO – Interdistrict Registration and Examination Department

MTS - from English. Mobile Telephone System

MFC - multifunctional center

EMERCOM – Ministry of Emergency Situations

NTV – our television, the name of the Russian TV channel

NTD – normative and technical documentation

OKTMO – All-Russian Classifier of Municipal Territories

UN – United Nations

RZD – Russian Railways

RSFSR – Russian Federative Socialist Republic

USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

CIS – Commonwealth of Independent States

OJSC – open joint stock company

OSCE - Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

OGE – Main state exam

OMON - special purpose mobile detachment

OSAGO - compulsory insurance policy for civil liability of vehicle owners

GPP – general physical training

PJSC – public joint stock company

PVC – polyvinyl chloride – colorless transparent plastic

PFR – Pension Fund of Russia

RANEPA – Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

RSChS – Russian (unified) system (prevention) of emergency situations

SZV – information about earnings (remuneration)

SKA is an army sports club, a hockey club that originated in the USSR

SMS – (from (English short message service - “short message service”)

SNILS – insurance number of an individual personal account

SNT - gardening non-profit partnership

St. Petersburg – St. Petersburg

AIDS – acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

SPPK – spring relief valve

SRO is a self-regulatory organization

STO – technical service station

STS – 1. network of television stations; 2. cellular telephone communication; 3. ambulance transport ship

TASS - television agency of the Soviet Union

TNT – Your New Television, federal channel of Russia

CHP - combined heat and power plant

UKSUS – Department of Supply Coordination and Sales Settlement

Federal Migration Service - Department of the Federal Migration Service

UFSIN - Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service

FAPSI - Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information

FAS – Federal Antimonopoly Service

FSES – Federal State Educational Standard

FSB – Federal Security Service

FSIN – Federal Penitentiary Service

FSKN – Federal Service for Drug Control

FIFA – (from French Fédération Internationale de Football Association)

Federal executive authorities - federal executive authorities

CSKA – Central Army Sports Club, hockey team

UNESCO – (from the English UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) specialized UN agency for education, science and culture

What other interesting abbreviations do you know?

Sometimes in speech there are words that consist of a set of letters or halves of words. It happens that the meaning of such words is unfamiliar. This is a whole group of lexemes that exist in our language. Let's talk about them. We will try to find the answer to this question in the article.

Compound word

The word means "reduction" in Italian. This is a special type that requires decoding. Most often used in official business documentation, typical for many languages.

To understand what an abbreviation is, it is enough to consider at least one example in detail. Let's take the floor Moscow State University. At first glance it is not clear to us. Just some set of letters. But a person who knows Russian at school level will immediately say that each letter stands for a word. Let's decipher them: M- Moscow, G- state, U- university.

Thus, knowing the decoding, you can determine what the abbreviation means.

Familiarity with the use of abbreviations in speech begins at school. For example, when studying biology you can come across the following abbreviations: DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid, HIV- human immunodeficiency virus, etc.

Methods of forming abbreviations

Complex abbreviated words sometimes mean things that are familiar and close to us. They may look different, but they have one thing in common: in order to correctly introduce such a word into your speech, it must be deciphered and correctly agreed in a sentence.

There are several ways to form such words. Let's take a closer look at them.

In addition, English abbreviations are widespread in our speech. They accompany the following areas: science, medicine, fiction. There are many abbreviations in specialized literature.

Decoding compound words

Having studied the theoretical material, it is not difficult to understand what an abbreviation is. The main thing here is to learn how to correctly apply them in your speech. To do this, you need to know how such a complex abbreviated word is deciphered and then correctly agree it in a sentence.

For example, in the sentence " After the repair of the nuclear power plant, electricity output increased"The verb ends in A. To write it correctly, you must first decipher the word. NPP - nuclear power plant. The main word is “station”, it is feminine.

Abbreviations with decoding will help you construct your speech correctly and competently. They also allow you to expand your vocabulary, since such decoding introduces you to new words.

In addition, abbreviations are constantly heard in our speech. It is necessary to know them, otherwise you can be considered an uneducated person. In addition, knowing such words will make life easier.

For example, in order to know where this sign leads, you need to decipher it. LEMZ - This is the Lianozovsky Electromechanical Plant.

Foreign abbreviations

Most foreign compound words - English abbreviations. These are abbreviations of English words. Among them there are simple, quickly remembered ones, and there are also complex ones. You need to know them. They can be useful at work, while traveling, in business correspondence, and in other areas of human life.

Here are some English abbreviations. They can be divided into groups:

If you are interested in the full version of English abbreviations and translate them, this will contribute to the study of the English language. Such abbreviations with decoding also add to the lexicon.

Abbreviations in our lives

Abbreviation words accompany us through life, starting from birth in the maternity hospital (maternity hospital), which is registered in the registry office (civil registry office). After visiting a preschool educational institution (preschool educational institution), we still go through an eleven-year journey to MOKU secondary school (municipal educational institution secondary general education school), where we attend classes, sports sections (sports sections), drama clubs (drama clubs), etc. Then we enter a university (higher education institution) or college, get a specialty and work at a research institute (research institute) or LLC (limited liability company). Someone opens a private enterprise (private enterprise) and becomes an individual entrepreneur (individual entrepreneur). We go to department stores (department stores), housing office (housing maintenance office), visit sports complexes ( sport complexes), recreation center (house of culture), we work on a PC (personal computer). And at this time, serious passions are boiling in the EU (European Union), OSCE APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation)...

This is just a small part of the examples demonstrating what an abbreviation is. It’s impossible to list everything. But we come across them at every step.

The best

Origin the most common The English abbreviation OK has many variants: it is associated with the name of American biscuits, with the telegraph operator's term "open key", with the initials of one of the US presidents, with the affirmative answer of the Indians.

The longest the abbreviation in Russia consists of 55 characters - NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBORMONIMONKONOTDTEHSTROYMONT (Research Laboratory of Operations for Concrete Reinforcement and Reinforced Concrete Works for the Construction of Prefabricated Monolithic and Monolithic Structures, Department of Technology of Construction and Installation Administration of the Academy of Construction and Architecture of the USSR).

The funniest abbreviation - LOCK ON THE MOUTH (DEPUTY COMMANDER FOR NAVAL AFFAIRS).

The most ridiculous abbreviation is MUDO (Municipal Institution of Additional Education).

And an abbreviation (Italian abbreviatura, from Latin brevis - short) - in ancient manuscripts and books: an abbreviated spelling of a word or group of words. In modern publications, an abbreviation is used to refer to any abbreviated word or phrase. An abbreviation is usually (but not always!) written in capital letters. Abbreviations that are read by sounds (and not by letter names) and denote common nouns are written in lowercase letters (for example, university, rono, bunker).

What are the different types of abbreviations?

Initial abbreviation. A word formed from the names of the initial letters or from the initial sounds of words included in the original phrase. (For example, ACS - automated control system, ODU - ordinary differential equations, DDL - data description language).

- Abbreviationalphabetic. An abbreviation made up of the alphabetical names of the initial letters of the words that form the original phrase. RF (er-ef) ( Russian Federation). KGB (ka-ge-be) (State Security Committee), TFKP (te-ef-ka-pe) (theory of functions of a complex variable).

- The abbreviation is letter-sound. An abbreviation formed partly from the names of the initial letters, partly from the initial sounds of the words of the original phrase. CDSA (tse-de-sa) (Central House of the Soviet Army).

Sound abbreviation (acronym). An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of the words of the original phrase. HPP (hydroelectric power station). University (higher education institution). TASS (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union). Unlike a letter abbreviation, it is pronounced as a single word (“GUM” as hum, not “ge-u-um”), not letter by letter.

Recursive abbreviation. An abbreviation, a decoding that includes itself. For example, GNU (GNU‘s Not Unix), ALT (ALT Linux Team), PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor), ATTA (Agency creative technologies ATTA).

Compound words. A word formed from the initial parts of two or more words (food store, collective farm, etc.) or representing the addition of the beginning of one word with another word of the phrase (maternity hospital, drama club, television network, etc.).

Graphic abbreviation (since - since).

Mixed reduction (RosNII - Russian Scientific Research Institute).

Abbreviations, or abbreviations, have long been used in writing by all peoples who have a written language. The ancient Romans tried to achieve this with their Tironian marks; V modern times Shorthand was invented for the same purpose.

The main purpose of abbreviations is to save speech and written text. When pronounced, the sounding time of an abbreviation is approximately five times shorter than the corresponding concept, and when written, the savings are even more noticeable.

The most complete list of abbreviations (abbreviations) from A to Z

To quickly search, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F

ABBM – high power battery

Asphalt concrete plant - asphalt concrete plant

ABS – anti-lock braking system; auto-locking system; automated banking system

AVN – Academy of Military Sciences

AGZS – gas filling station

ADSL - transliteration from English. abbr. ADSL – Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (Asymmetric DSL) – asymmetric digital subscriber line

AZLK – Automobile Plant named after. Lenin Komsomol

Gas station - gas station

AzSSR – Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic

AZU – subscriber protective device; automatic locking device; automatic charger; automatic protective device; analog storage device; associative storage device

AIS OSAGO – automated information system for compulsory motor third party liability insurance

AIS PFR - automated information system of the Russian Pension Fund

AIF – joint-stock investment fund

AiF – “Arguments and Facts”

AK – 7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle model 1947 (AK-47); aviation corps; truck crane; joint-stock company; aortic valve (med.)

AK-74 – 5.45 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle model 1974

AKB – rechargeable battery; active client base; Joint Stock Commercial Bank

AKM - 7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle, model 1959, modernized; alveolar soft tissue sarcoma (med.); anti-crisis measures

AKP – automatic gearbox (shift); anti-crisis plan

Automatic transmission – automatic gearbox

ALROSA – “Diamonds of Russia – Sakha” (name of the joint stock company)

AMiK – Alexander Maslyakov and company

AMS – Academy of Medical Sciences

AMS - automatic interplanetary station

AN – Real Estate Agency; Academy of Sciences

NSA - National Security Agency

AO – autonomous region; aggregate compartment; Joint-Stock Company; alcohol intoxication; Amur region; analytical review; Archaeological discoveries (edition)

Caller ID – automatic caller ID; Academy of Social Sciences (under the CPSU Central Committee); anti-identifier; number identification equipment

AIC – agrarian-industrial complex

AWP – automated workstation

ASKI - transliteration from English. abbr. ASCII – American Standard Code for Information Interchange (American standard encoding table for printable characters and some special codes)

ACS – automated control system; automated accounting system

ATO - anti-terrorist operation

ATS – automatic telephone exchange; Arbitration court

AHO - administrative and economic department

AC – Accreditation Center

NPP – nuclear power plant

AY – subscription box; PO Box

When asking the question: “What is an abbreviation?”, it is worth paying attention to the interpretations given in dictionaries. The term is literally understood as an abbreviation, but in writing it occupies a certain place, namely, it represents the formation of a single, inextricable lexical structure from capital letters or the first syllables of a group of words. As a rule, this applies to the names of organizations, regulatory designations of documentation (including legal), but there are also abbreviations colloquial expressions. The latter are often slang expressions or professionalisms that are typical for a small environment and therefore are not used officially.

Origins of the term

The word "abbreviation" is (which refers to morphology) "abbreviation". The term originates in Latin (brevis - briefly), but it acquired its usual sound in Italian. In modern literature, this concept includes all abbreviated words, but traditionally only complexly abbreviated groups of words should be considered. Thus, an acronym is something that is publicly available and widely applicable. Special cases of the formation of a morphological structure, adopted in individual publications or articles, in mandatory are explained in the text to avoid distortion of meaning and confusion.

History of application

Abbreviations are found even in the most ancient written sources. A striking example is the abbreviations found in the documents of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It is known that they were one of the first elements used in cursive writing techniques. Another example of the use of the abbreviation was the inscriptions on coins.

After the widespread use of capital Latin and Greek letters in the Middle Ages, the first abbreviated expressions appeared and were used in everyday life. The method of contracture, in other words shortening individual words using initial letters and endings, was used in Greece to write sacred names. This system was subsequently borrowed by the Romans to denote various concepts. To understand, it is necessary to determine the context of its application.

Scope of use

Typically, in everyday situations, common simple abbreviations are used. They are formed from short phrases or abbreviated words. The essence of the first is to skip non-essential parts of speech, which are easily reproduced based on the context and connection with auxiliary verbs, parts of speech, etc.

In writing, they are used only when necessary, because in specific papers that are intended for use by third parties, especially when it comes to printed publications, readers may not know what the abbreviation means. Individual cases may serve as exceptions. Scientific works, as well as quotations, technical documentation, bibliographical information, etc. must contain a minimum of abbreviations. Individual applications in the sciences are an urgent need.

Decoding the abbreviation

In fact, the same set of letters can mean completely different phrases. For example, how to decipher the abbreviation ASK? Firstly, it can be an abbreviation of one word. In particular, the scientific term for the fungal bursa is appropriate. In this case, the full version is the Greek word askos, which literally translates as “bag.”

Secondly, the word may be an abbreviation that is applicable in a particular environment as a slang expression. “Ascorutin” and ascetic can also be referred to as medicine and hermit in a wide circle, but groups of people faced with the need to use these words quite often may deliberately shorten them to speed up communicative interaction when speaking or for quick writing when it comes to private notes .

Thirdly, ACK can stand for:

College of Architecture and Civil Engineering;
agricultural horticultural cooperative;
withdrawal syndrome in a smoker.

As you can see, in the latter case, the “y” is omitted when compiling the abbreviation. Thus, the same abbreviation form is responsible for different concepts. This applies to the most common cases, but in particular cases the abbreviation may contain complex words and highly specialized terms.