Thread: The love to abbreviations (... and acronyms)

Net abbreviations had appeared first in English even before the Internet became what it is now, i.e. before WWW (world-wide-web).
20 years ago people were using dialup modems (btw, modem is an acronym too from modulator-demodulator) and bulletin board systems (BBS), obviously, abbreviations were the result of people laziness (to a degree). First BBSs appeared in the US so it's only natural that these abbreviations were in English. When these systems appeared in Russia we used all these BTW, FYI, RTFM, AFAIK, IMHO, ASAP, etc just because they were de-facto standard and there was no reason to invent our own ones since everyone else seemed to understand them.

Originally Posted by CoffeeCup

The question is not stated as to use or not to use the abbreviations. If we focus on the Internet chatting: The question is why these abbreviations emerge in English as water drops while it rains and do not emerge in Russian (there are only few which are not the translations from English, while Russians really use Internet for chatting in Russian). By the way, what about other languages: French, German, ... .

I really don't feel like that.
If we focus on the Internet chatting: first it spread in USA so corresponding culture naturally appeared in Endlish first and many things was borrowed into Russian.

Out of internet. Let us continue remembering abbreviations which are really used in Russian (in different situations, mixed list, not proper names):

Б/у = second hand
х/б = cotton-made
н/з = emergency store
ЗК = prisoner
и т.д. = etc.
и т.п. = etc. (2)
т.к. = because
т.е. = i.e.. that is
в т.ч. = including
т. зр. = viewpoint
и.о. = in charge
вуз = higher education establishment
зав = chief (in many senses)
зам = second in something
комбат = battalion commander
замполит = ... ???
главбух = chief accountant ?
управдом = ???
ЖЭК, БМП, БТР, РПГ, ДДТ, НИИ, п/пк, вохра, бомж, бич, чмо, нардеп, (АО, ОАО, ЗАО, ООО)...

...got boring.

Итого, I don't feel like there is less abbreviations in Russian than in English - in any sphere. In contrary I feel like abbreviations are more popular in Russian than in English because Russian usually is less compact and abbreviations are needed more (see my examples).

Originally Posted by rockzmom

By the way, have you ever typed MR for Master Russian?

Nice! For your crucial efforts to popularize MR and bring it mainstream you are being promoted to the Master of the Royal Secret, a shy away from the 33rd Degree.

Just kidding

Originally Posted by it-ogo

замполит = ... ???
главбух = chief accountant ?
управдом = ???

замполит = deputy commander for political work
главбух = chief accountant (yes)
управдом = property manager