{"id":506,"date":"2015-08-03T07:17:47","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T07:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/97.74.134.56\/?p=506"},"modified":"2015-08-03T07:17:47","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T07:17:47","slug":"word-subtraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/word-subtraction\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Subtraction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Word Subtraction<\/span><\/h2>\n

We all know you can form new words by adding existing words together, such as combining boat and house to make boathouse or houseboat. But did you know that a lot of common words are also formed by subtraction or taking a piece away from a longer word?<\/span><\/p>\n

The linguistic term for this is clipping. It means shortening an existing word to form a new word. The clipped form has the same meaning as the original word and becomes a word in its own right, rather than an abbreviation. This means it can be combined with other words to form compounds.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of clipped forms<\/strong><\/p>\n

biopic<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 biographical picture
\nbra<\/span> <\/strong>-brassi\u00e8re
\nburger<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 hamburger
\nbus<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 omnibus
\ncello<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 violoncello
\nexam<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 examination
\nflu<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 influenza
\nfridge<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 refrigerator
\ngas <\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 gasoline
\ngym<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 gymnasium
\nlab<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 laboratory
\nmath<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 mathematics (clipped to maths in British English)
\nmemo<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 memorandum
\nmob<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 mobile vulgus (fickle crowd in Latin)
\nmovie<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 moving picture
\npants<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 pantaloons
\nphone<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 telephone
\npiano<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 pianoforte
\nplane<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 airplane
\npram<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 perambulator
\nsitcom <\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 situation comedy
\ntie<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 necktie
\ntypo<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 typographical error<\/p>\n

There are lots more, of course, but these are clipped forms that have more or less replaced the longer original in everyday speech. Can you think of some others to add to the list?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Subtraction We all know you can form new words by adding existing words together, such as combining boat and house to make boathouse or houseboat. But did you know that a lot of common words are also formed by subtraction or taking a piece away from a longer word? The linguistic term for this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-english","8":"category-improve-your-english"},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/word-sub.jpg?fit=800%2C521&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Writing Geeks","author_link":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/author\/writinggeeks\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/word-sub.jpg?fit=800%2C521&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uhmH-8a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writinggeeks.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}