Clipped compound
In linguistics, a clipped compound is a word produced from a compound word by reducing its parts while retaining the meaning of the original compound. It is a special case of a type of word formation called clipping.
Clipped compounds are common in various slang and jargon vocabularies, but they are not specific to those. Examples in English include sci fi, comp sci, lab tech, and surg tech.
A clipped compound word is linguistically a type of blend word. The nature of its morphology and orthography is subject to the linguistic forces seen with other compounds. Like other blends, clipped compounds may be made of two or more components. However, a blend may have a meaning independent of its components' meanings, while in a clipped compound the components already serve the function of producing a compound meaning. In addition, a clipped compound may drop one component completely: hard instead of hard labor, or mother for motherfucker. Laurie Bauer suggests the following ad hoc distinction for English: If the word has compound stress, it is a clipped compound; if it has single-word stress, it is a blend.
The meaning of clipped compound may overlap with that of acronym.
In the Russian language, a clipped compound may acquire one or more extra suffixes that indicate the intended grammatical form of the formed word. In particular, the suffix -k is commonly used, for example, in askorbinka.
In Japanese, clipped compounds are very commonly used to shorten long, either coined or wholly borrowed, compounds. For instance, a word processor may be referred to as simply ワープロ wāpuro, sexual harassment as セクハラ sekuhara, the program Clip Studio Paint as クリスタ Kurisuta, the video game series Monster Hunter as モンハン Monhan, the United Nations as 国連 Kokuren, and the Soviet Union as ソ連 Soren.
Clipped compound place names
Clipped compounds are sometimes used in place names.- English: The Delmarva Peninsula is named for the US states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Several Manhattan neighborhoods are clipped compounds including Soho, Noho, Tribeca, Nolita and Nomad.
- Chinese: The Chinese city of Wuhan takes its name from a clipped compound of the "Three Towns of Wuhan": Wuchang contributes "Wu", whereas Hankou and Hanyang both contribute "Han."
- Japanese: In Japanese, city names are often combined in a clipped compound with alternative readings of the characters, especially for combined regions or for train lines between cities. Most often the kan-on readings are used for the compounds, while the place names use other readings. For example, the Kyoto and Osaka region is called Keihan, as is a major train line connecting them, replacing the go-on reading and kun'yomi with the kan-on readings and. The larger region, including Kobe, is similarly called Keihanshin, the go-on reading replacing the kun'yomi.
- Hebrew: In Hebrew, there are many words that are clipped compounds and other types of abbreviations. Since in Jewish writing system the vowels are usually omitted, the resulting word may sound differently: "mabas" for "base commander" is made of מפקד הבסיס. Another example: רמזור is רמז plus אור.
- Multi-lingual: The Benelux Union takes its name from its component nations, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
- The African country Tanzania has a name that combines the names of the two states that unified to create the country: Tanganyika and Zanzibar.