In addition, in the modern world, there sometimes is the need to fit as much information as possible into one message while having a limited amount of characters. Obviously, it takes a lot less effort to write SARS than it would if you were to write “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome”, the whole phrase that it stands for. The reason why abbreviations have been popular hundreds of years ago and why they still remain so today is that they help us save space and time. Beowulf, an Old English epic poem from some time around the tenth century, is only one example of works that had shortened forms of words in them. As for the English language, it’s been full of abbreviations from the very beginning. In fact, in ancient Greece and Rome, it was common to shorten words by their first letter.

All of these are abbreviations.Įven though it might seem that abbreviations are a rather modern phenomenon that exploded due to technology and text messages, they’ve actually been around for thousands of years. For example, it’s common to come across an “etc.” or “i.e.” in an essay and an “OMG” or “FYI” in a text message you receive from a friend. Common Abbreviations List | InfographicsĪbbreviation Definition and Usage What is an Abbreviation?īoth in formal and informal speech, we don’t always write the whole word or phrase and use a shortened form instead.

Images of abbreviations for words