Lexigame Community
General Category => Words => Topic started by: ridethetalk on August 24, 2020, 04:28:16 PM
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Finally remembered to suggest this - DESAL as in desal plant - I suggest that this is a common enough contraction to warrant at least a rare word...
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I'd go along with that.
It can be one of a set along with detox and decaf.
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I'm pretty sure detox is common
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For me detox was immediately identifiable as an abbreviation for detoxification. ( common )
Similarly decaf, easily identified as an abbreviation for decaffeinated. ( borderline )
However desal, even with John's example, not so readily recognisable. ( rare )
By the way, are these contractions or abbreviations, which description is technically correct or are both words grammatically acceptable in this context?
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The word desal has been raised before, by me. In 2009 (https://theforum.lexigame.com/index.php?topic=1660.msg38565#msg38565), following discussion of inconsistency in the treatment of desalt and desalted, I said:
On this topic, the informal term desal has come to be used quite frequently in Australia in recent times, ususally to mean the same as desalination, as in "desal plant", "desal project", etc. Currently desal is not allowed in Chihuahua at all. It doesn't seem to be used much outside Australia, so maybe it isn't well-enough established as a word. Does anyone have any thoughts on desal?
There wasn't any further discussion apart from birdy commenting that she wasn't aware of desal being used in the US.
Fast forward 11 years, and it seems that desal is still largely confined to Australia. The only dictionaries I can find it in are the Macquarie, Wiktionary (with one example, from an Australian source) and the Urban Dictionary. The Macquarie is Australian, Wiktionary has inclusion policies (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Criteria_for_inclusion) that are broader than I aim for in Chihuahua and the Urban Dictionary is not always reliable. I've generally followed the policy that an Australian word won't be accepted unless it's found in at least one non-Australian general dictionary.
Turning to usage, the Corpus of Global Web-based English, GloWbE, shows Australian usage as being more than 15 times that in any of the other main Chihuahua-playing countries.
(https://theforum.lexigame.com/desal.png)
The other corpus I use for comparing usage across many English speaking countries is News on the Web. That doesn't show such an extreme disparity, as it has the US with about a quarter of the Australian usage and Ireland with about a fifth. Britain on the other hand has less than a twentieth of the Australian usage. However the American and Irish usage is from only a handful of different publications.
Even within Australia I think the word is not used much in some states - it depends on whether desalination plants have been built or proposed.
I feel that desal is too localised in usage at this stage to warrant being accepted.
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It may also be known by those who have worked in the desert countries of the Middle East.
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I still don't know if it is a contraction or an abbreviation?
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An abbreviation, Les.
An abbreviation is a shortening of a longer word: 'influenza' becomes 'flu' for example.
A contraction is when two words combine to become one. The most common contractions in English are negatives; 'have' + 'not' becomes 'haven't'
Next lesson - acronyms, mnemonics and portmanteau words,
;D
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I'll give it a go ;
Mike --- Master Instructor Kindly Engaging
I before E except after C ( drummed into me at school & i still use it all the time )
Situation + Comedy --- Sitcom.
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Well done!