ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors show how commonplace clipping, abbreviations and acronyms can be as means of creating youth, criminal or colloquial items. The clipping of words and phrases to make smaller items is found in many languages. There can be many reasons why a speaker might use clipping. It can also be formed through clipping words associated with youth, criminal or colloquial usage. Truncation is not the only way of shortening words and phrases; abbreviations and acronyms are other examples of smaller or more succinct items representing longer forms. Acronyms are created through combining the initial letter or letters of a series of words. As we might appreciate, acronyms in youth and colloquial language can be created at the expense of what is perceived to be the stuffy or self-important language of officialdom and formal structures. The attribution of different expansions to acronyms can also be seen in languages such as Russian.
