List of Singapore Abbreviations - Overview

Overview

Abbreviations are of three basic kinds:

• Clippings, in which a shortened form of a word occurs. Common clippings in Singapore are: air-con (from "air-conditioner"), condo (from "condominium"), sabo (from "sabotage"), and cert (from "certificate").
• Acronyms, in which the initial letters are formed into a single word, such as scuba, which is derived from "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus". Creation of acronyms such as this is rare in Singapore English, though TIBS ( /ˈtɪbz/, "Trans-Island Bus Service") and CISCO ( /ˈsɪskoʊ/, "Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation") are found.
• Initialisms, in which the individual letters are spelled out. This is by far the most common category in Singapore, including PAP ("People's Action Party") and PIE ("Pan-Island Expressway"), which are pronounced /ˌpiː ˌeɪ ˈpiː/ and /ˌpiː ˌaɪ ˈiː/ respectively and never */ˈpæp/ and */ˈpaɪ/. Some analysts regard initialisms such as these as one kind of acronym, but others prefer to distinguish between the two categories.

Initialisms are extremely common in Singapore, and many have become better known and more widely used than the full form of the words they represent. One example is the Kandang Kerbau Women's and Children's Hospital, which is more commonly referred to as KK.

The most important category of Singapore initialisms are those for government departments and public institutions. Among the earliest examples are PUB ("Public Utilities Board") and HDB ("Housing Development Board"). Abbreviations such as these were especially important in the past when most Singaporeans were not educated in English, and their use facilitated communication in the public services where the main administrative language is English. Government departments have therefore promoted the use of these initialisms, so they occur even in non-English publications. Although the younger generation of Singaporeans are now all educated in English, abbreviations remain a major characteristic of Singapore English.

There are efforts to maintain some consistency among the initialisms. Three letters are used for government institutions (PUB, HDB, CPF, MOH, CWO) and for expressways (AYE, PIE, KJE), while two letters are used for polytechnics (SP, RP). To maintain this consistency, some abbreviations are not direct initials; for example CTE is used for "Central Expressway" instead of *CE, and NP is used for "Ngee Ann Polytechnic" instead of *NAP. When the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was established in 1991, the name was chosen instead of the alternative "Nanyang University of Technology" because the latter would have resulted in the unsuitable NUT. While Anderson Secondary School has shortened its name to ANDSS instead of ASS.

Recently, there have emerged a number of unconventional abbreviations, such as A*Star for Agency for Science, Technology and Research.) When SAFTI (Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute) was reorganised in 1995, it acquired the name SAFTI Military Institute, further abbreviated as SAFTI MI, which when fully expanded would form a rather awkward title Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute Military Institute.