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01 Dec 2005 Thu 04:47 pm |
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Quoting widdley: HGV in English "Heavy Goods Vehical"
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But HGV in English is almost part of the language. The only time you would use "Heavy Goods Vehicle" in full would be on official paperwork such as licences or during official speech such as in a legal capacity. Much the same is true for CD (Compact Disc). You put a CD in a CD player - you do not put a compact disc in a compact disc player!!!
There is a big difference between accepted parts of vocablary as above, and informal abbrebiations. English has always been full of the latter in written form but they are rare in spoken form. Tradional abbreviations include etc. (etcetera), ref. (reference) and misc. (miscellaneous).
In recent times other, more spurious, written abbreviations have entered the English language. This is mostly due to modern electronic communication methods (SMS, email, etc.). These include txt, lol, brb and m8.
Whenever I am writing anyhting that is likely to be read by anyone whose English is a second language, such as on this site, I try to avoid all abbreviations except intrinsic language components (e.g. SMS) and the most common tradional abbrebiations. Personally I would like to see others do the same both in English and Turkish as it makes the learning process easier. The accepted use of abbriviations will become clearer through use. The same is true for slang.
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would i be the only one?
