Abbreviations: thirty-eight years after the publication of the paper “Abbreviations: an attempt at typological classification”

In the last four decades, our knowledge of the world of abbreviations has evolved considerably: from establishing a more or less accepted or shared classification of these shortened words to consolidating the most appropriate spelling for each abbreviation class, this apparent lexical gibberish has been clarified and given its appropriate place, including the recommendation to include abbreviations in general dictionaries, insofar as dictionaries must be able to also decode these lexical units. In this article, we have sought to update our knowledge of abbreviations and their present recommended or practical use, particularly after the publication and consolidation of the new spelling rules by the Institute of Catalan Studies, providing a detailed description of each of the subsets that make up the abridgements of words (basically, abbreviations, symbols and acronyms) and the realisation that the authors’ proposals for classification and spelling consistency continue to be valid, despite the time that has passed since that far-off 1985, adapting to the progress made in the various disciplines in which they are used.