The Art of the Acronym in Thomas Pynchon NOTES

[Dave Monroe]

Putz, Manfred. "Thc Art of the Acronym in Thomas Pynchon."
   Studies in the Novel 23. 3 (Fall 1991): 371-382.

NOTES

1 Laurie Bauer, English Word-Formation (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press, 1983), pp. 23338. For other contributions on the topic, see
Hans Marchand, The Categories and Types of Present-Day English
Word-Formation (Munchen: C. H. Beck, 1969), pp. 451-54: Valerie Adams,
An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation (London: Longman,
1973), pp. 135-38; Randolph Quirk et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of
the English Language (London: Longman, 1985), app. I, pp. 1580-84. In
contrast to such studies, David Crystal's recent standard work The
English Language (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988) dedicates only half a
page to abbreviations and acronyms, and considers them merely as a
lexicographical problem.

2 Cf. as notable contributions: Rulon Wells, "Acronymy," in For Roman
Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday (The Hague:
Mouton & Co, 1956), pp. 662-67; Alvin L. Gregg, "Tendencies in the
Formation of Alphabetical Combinations: Acronyms and Alphabetisms," in
Mid-America Linguistics Conference Papers, ed. Michael Henderson
(Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas, 1988), pp. 121-32; Fritz Wolcken,
"Entwicklungsstufen der Wortbildung aus Initialen," Anglia 75 (l 957):
317-33; John Algeo, "The Acronym and its Congeners," in The First
Lacus Forum 1974, eds. Adam Makkai and Valerie Becker Makkai
(Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press, 1975), pp. 217-34. Rulon Wells
concentrates mainly on a synchronic, morphemic investigation, whereas
Wolcken and Algeo predominantly cover aliachronic aspects. In addition
to a short history of the acronym, Algeo also offers a capsule review
of the linguistic study of acronymy (pp. 219ff).

3 Algeo, for one, attempts to get some order into the terminological
confusion in his article "The Acronym and its Congeners," pp. 227-28.

4 Cf. Algeo's attempt to combine various features of current
definitions of acronym in his somewhat complicated but fairly
inclusive compromise formula: "An acronym is a word formed
orthographically by combining the initial letter or letters of the
major parts of a morphemically complex term and pronounced either by
letter names or according to orthoepic rules (or less often by a
descriptive phrase, with inserted vowels, or in a combination of these
ways)" (p. 227).

5 Marchand (p. 453, n. 3), Algeo (p. 220), and Wolcken (p. 317, n. 6)
give lists of standard Dictionaries of Abbreviations and Acronyms.

6 See H. L. Mencken, The American Language (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1936), p. 92.

7 Otto Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles,
Pan VI: Morphology (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1942), pp. 551-52. Cf.
also Eric Partridge, "The Gentle Art of Abbreviation," in Words at
War, Words at Peace (Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1948), pp.
48-53.

8 T. M. Pearce, "Acronym Talk, or 'Tomorrow's English'," Word Study 23
(1947): 6-8.

9 For the sources of these labels, see Algeo, p. 230.

10 See in particular Wolcken's sketch of the five developmental stages
of the acronym in "Entwicklungsstufen der Wortbildung aus Initialen."
Cf. also the already quoted articles by Gregg and Algeo in note 2.

11 Cf. Gregg, pp. 124, 127f.

12 Algeo, p. 229.

13 Interesting observations on this type of acronym, and in particular
on the unexpected formation of CREEP, are offered in William Satire,
"Acronyms Sought," in Exploring Language, ed. Gary Goshgarian (Boston,
1980), pp. 107-10.

14 Algeo, p. 229. See also Wolcken, pp. 330ff.

15 Barbara Hansen et al., Englische Lexikologie (Leipzig, 1982), p. 151.

16 Gregg, p. 121.

17 For Humpty Dumpty's explanation of portmanteau words, see Chapter
Six ("Humpty Dumpty") of Through the Looking-Glass (1872).

18 Thomas Pynchon, V. (Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott,
1963); The Crying of Lot 49 (Philadelphia and New York: J.B.
Lippincott, 1966); Gravity's Rainbow (New York: Viking, 1973);
Vineland (London: Secker & Warburg, 1990). References to the above
editions are given in parentheses in the text.

19 David Lodge, Nice Work (London: Secker & Warburg, 1988), p. 53.

20 The irony of this example is somewhat complicated: in the episode
in question, the black brothers of the revolutionary organization BAAD
give the name UHURU to their newly acquired Porsche car. In this
context the acronym is said to stand for "Ultra High-speed Urban
Reconnaissance Unit," but one must also be aware of the fact that
Uhuru means "freedom" in Swahili, and that it has-been the central
political slogan of many independence movements in the black African
world.

21 H.L. Mencken, The American Language: Supplement One (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), pp. 41 If.

22 Cf. Fritz Wolcken's article "Entwicklungsstufen der Wortbildung aus
Initialen," p. 324.

23 See, for instance, Thomas Pyles, Words and Ways of American English
(New York: Random House, 1952), p. 181.

24 Algeo, p. 232.

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By MANFRED PUTZ