Lühendite alternatiivsed tõlgendused – rahvahuumor ja erikeel
Alternative interpretations of abbreviations and acronyms: Folk humour and jargon

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses abbreviation riddles or abbreviation parodies or alternative interpretations of abbreviations (about 3,000 abbreviations in total, categorised into about 330 types), which have been accumulated in the database of Estonian abbreviation riddles (Voolaid 2004a). This corpus incorporates full data and follows specific criteria. It also provides a fine overview of the folkloric alternative interpretations of abbreviations and acronyms at different times, allowing us to diachronically observe and describe the semantic changes of the genre in a socio-cultural context.The paper deals with the nature of abbreviations or abbreviation parodies from the folkloristic and linguistic aspects. The systematization of the abbreviations is based on a taxonomy proposed by the Russian folklorist Alexandra Arkhipova (2008).

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