A Study of Methods for Systematically Abbreviating English Words and Names

Abstract

This study investigated various techniques for systematically abbreviating English words and names. Most of the attention was given to the techniques which could be mechanized with a digital device such as a general purpose digital computer. Particular attention was paid to techniques that could process incoming information without prior knowledge of its existence (i.e., no table lookups). Thirteen basic techniques and their modifications are described. In addition, most of the techniques were tested on a sample of several thousand subject words and several thousand proper names in order to provide a quantitative measure of comparison. © 1961 ACM. All rights reserved.