A Dictionary of Abbreviations

With Especial Attention to War-Time Abbreviations

Eric Partridge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317431930
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

First published in 1942, this dictionary was designed to help civilians and members of H.M. forces to make their way amid the jungle of wartime abbreviations. The preface notes that newspaper readers, sailors, soldiers and airmen had to thrust themselves, like explorers, into these abbreviations in search of truth, or the execution of their martial duty and hence, a dictionary was necessary. This book will be of interest to scholars of history and language, as well as the more general, interested reader.

First published in 1942 Revised and enlarged edition, April 1943

For my friend
HUGH KIMBER
who does not need it

All rights reserved

Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE LTD. at the University Press, Edinburgh

Preface

This dictionary, which does not pretend to be complete, is designed to help civilians and those numerous members of H.M. Forces who are not experts in abbreviation, to make their way amid that jungle of abbreviations through which newspaper readers and sailors, soldiers, airmen have to thrust, like intrepid explorers, either in the search for truth or in the execution of their martial duty.

Civilians can afford to regard abbreviations either as a game or as an attempt at extrication from a verbal maze, but airmen and soldiers and sailors cannot afford to regard them so light-heartedly. Petty Officers and N.C.Os., and inexperienced officers in any of the Services, regard abbreviations as something more than a joke: and even experienced officers may find themselves at a loss when confronted with a new one or when they meet with a long set of instructions issuing from a Service not their own and couched in an abbreviology that may, in their first feeling of stupefaction, strike them as demonology.

Under the term abbreviations are included abridgements (e.g. att is " attached," det is " detachment ").

Gestapo, Nazi, Ogpu, Tass, and all other such words as have, from at least as early as 1940, been no longer apprehended, in English at least, as abbreviations, are excluded.

Corrections and additions will be welcomed.

Postscript to 2nd Edition.—I have to thank Mr George Dow, the very able and courteous Information Agent of the L.N.E.R., for a useful set of additional railway abbreviations.

A

GENERAL NOTE.—Chemical abbreviations have no points: thus N, not N., is nitrogen; Na, not Na., is natrium.

A. Acting; usually a, as in a/Lt.-Col., Acting Lieutenant-Colonel.

(2) Adjective. Also Adj. or adj.

(3) Adjutant; Adjutant's, as in "the A side " of a Divisional, Corps, or higher headquarters; A also = the Adjutant - General's Branch.

(4) Adult; for adults only (cinema programmes).

(5) Advance!: on clock-regulators.

(6) Answer.

(7) Argon. (Chemistry.)

(8) Article(s).

(9) On sleeve it= Fleet Air Arm. (Naval.)

a. Accepted.

(2) Acre(s).

(3) Active. (In Grammar.)

(4) Aged (of horses more than six years old).

(5) Alto.

(6) Area.

(7) At. (Rare.)

A.A. Anti-aircraft.

(2) Automobile Association.

(3) Army Act.

(4) Associate in Arts.

A.A.A. Amateur Athletic Association.

(2) Agricultural Adjustment Administration or Act (in U.S.A.).

A. A. & Q...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright