3.2.2. Abbreviations

Acronyms may be formed from the initial syllables of each word of the phrase, e.g.: Interpol (International police); Incoterms (International Commercial Terms), tacsatcom = Tactical Satellite Communications, etc.;

Acronyms may be formed by a combination of the abbreviation of the first member of the phrase with the last member undergoing no change at all, e.g.: V-day (Victory Day), V-sign (victory sign); A-bomb (atomic bomb), H-bomb (hydrogen bomb); M-day (mobilization day), G-man (Government man), g-force (gravity force), e-mail (electronic mail), e-modem (external modem), F keys (functional keys), Z-hour (zero-hour), A Level (Advanced Level); O Level (Ordinary Level); m-commerce (mobile commerce), M-media (multimedia) etc, TV-set (-program, -show, -canal, etc.), H-bag (handbag), T-shirt, etc.

3. Latin abbreviations. Specific type of abbreviations is represented by Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but substituted by their English equivalents. A few of the most important cases are listed below:

E.g.: A.D. (Lat anno Domini) – Common Era, after Christ, a.i. (Lat ad interim) – temporary, ad lib (Lat ad libitum) – at pleasure, a.m. ['ei'em] (Lat ante meridiem) – before noon, in the morning, cf. (Lat conferre) – compare, etc. (Lat et cetera) – and so on, cp. (Lat comparare) – compare, e.g. (Lat exempli gratia) – for example ib. (Lat ibidem) – in the same place, id. (Lat idem) – the same, i.e. (Lat id est) – that is, namely, loc.cit. (Lat locus citato) – in the passage cited, ob. (Lat obiit) – he (she) died, q.v. (Lat quod vide) – which see; p.m. (Lat post meridiem) – in the afternoon, viz. (Lat videlicet) – namely.

Now, it should be noted that the abbreviations used in the notes for consecutive interpreting are not wholly identical to those used in the student’s notes or secretary’s reminders. These abbreviations must be explicit and unambiguous enough for the interpreter to understand immediately when reading back notes because under time pressure the interpreter has no chance to reconsider the meaning of abbreviations. An abbreviation may be meaningless to others, but must be meaningful to the interpreter using it.

There are many principles and rules for the use of abbreviations while taking notes at consecutive interpreting. However, the most important one is that abbreviations must be consistent, if an interpreter has chosen “pop” standing for “popular” then he should find another abbreviation for “population”, for example, “pop^on”.

The following suggestions about creating abbreviations are based on the truth that the fewer strokes are written; the more time can be saved.

Write what is heard: the interpreter can write a word by recording its sound only. For example: high- hi; know- no; free- fre; fee- fe; night- nite; etc.

Drop medial vowels, for example: build- bld; legal- lgl; bulletin- bltn; save- sv; budget- bjt; etc.

Write initial and final vowels, for example: office- ofs; easy- ez; follow- flo; value- vlu; open- opn; etc.

For example, all of the following words are recognizable in the column on the left even though the consonants are not doubled and even though some or all vowels are missing:

asmble	assemble
arpln	airplane
bmb	bomb
cmtee	committee
dgtl	digital
difrnce	difference
elfnt	elephant
hstry	history
ptrlum	petroleum
phlsphy	philosophy
zbr	zebra

Table 4: Some examples of abbreviations

The rules of abbreviations set up by Rozan are classified into three categories: 1) abbreviation of words, 2) abbreviation to indicate verb tenses, and 3) abbreviating the register.

1. According to the first rule, “unless a word is short (4-5 letters), the interpreter should note it in an abbreviated form” and “write some of the first and last letters rather than trying to write as many letters as possible from the start onwards” [59:16].

For example, Prod. could be read as “production”, “producer”, “product” or “productivity” while Pr^on, Pr^er, Pr^ct, Pr^vity are unambiguous.

2. The second rule reads that “to indicate tense we add ^–ll for the future and ^-d for the past” [59:17].

3. The third one is applied to abbreviate expressions which are too long, for example, “In order to arrive at some conclusion” can be noted “to end”; or “Taking into account the situation at the present time” can be noted “as sit^on now”; “with the intention of/ with the purpose of” can be noted “to”. The rule here is “wherever possible we must abbreviate by using a word which conveys the same meaning but is much shorter” [59:17].

The following table represents a list of some common abbreviations (to be used for note-taking at consecutive interpreting) which have been collected through both personal experience and practical observation.

Table 5: List of common abbreviations used for note-taking

Abbreviation of common international organization should be remembered by the interpreter. The working environment of the interpreter is varied, and he or she mostly often finds himself or herself at conferences (meetings) on a wide range of topics with many representatives coming from different international and/ or local organizations, agencies and corporations, etc. It is possible to say that the interpreter must have some background knowledge about those groups. It is the duty of the interpreter to remember their names in abbreviation as part of the required knowledge. The next two tables contain some common names in abbreviation.

Table 6: List of names of international organizations and agencies in abbreviation

Table 7: List of names of Ukrainian and international organizations and agencies in abbreviation (to be used for note-taking in Ukrainian)