ABSTRACT
Today's slick text-messaging techniques are a far cry from the old playground rhyme YYUR YYUB ICUR YY4ME. But words and phrases were being abbreviated long before mobile phones were invented. Our ancestors, as partial to short cuts as we are, were continually smoothing out awkward sounds in their everyday speech, cutting down on unnecessary phrases and amalgamating or abbreviating some of their most common words. It's human nature to experiment with word delivery and many abbreviated words start off as street language or slang - sarnie for sandwich, mash for mashed potato, spag bol for spaghetti bolognese - and slowly become an accepted part of our vocabulary. However, the explosion of abbreviations and acronyms in modern times, powered by science and technology and influenced by mass communication, is introducing us daily to a whole new vocabulary.
