When short words are too long

This evening we went to the last summer organ concert in St. Peter and heard Raymond O'Donnell playing Clerambault, Stanford, Buxtehude, Mendelssohn, Preston, and an encore improvisation on an Irish folk song. Afterward, we met up with the delightful Frau F., a friend of a friend, for drinks. The conversation turned to Twain's essay, and she reminded us that while Germans are always happy to cram words together into ridiculously long compound nouns, they also like abbreviations.

Thus one says:

"StÜPl" (pronounced shteupl) for "Standortuebungsplatz" (the local troop training ground);

"StVZO" (pronounced ess-tay-fow-tzet-oh) for "Strassenverkehrszulassungsordnung" (regulations governing admissibility of components of street vehicles);

"ErzBer" (pronounced ertzbear) for "Erziehungsberechtigter" (a child's guardian);

and KFZ (pronounced kah-eff-ztet) for "Kraftfahrzeug" (motor-powered vehicle).

Careful readers will have noticed that while the first three abbreviations save one a little breath, KFZ is a three-syllable substitution for a modest three-syllable word. But let us not be judgmental: after all, Germans get to say "vay vay vay" rather than "double-U double-U double-U" when they talk about the world wide web.

Traffic-related abbreviations are especially popular. In addition to KFZ, there's also PKW (pronounced pay-kah-vay) for Personenkraftwagen (passenger car), and LKW (pronounced ell-kah-vay) for Lastkraftwagen (truck).

Why say "Personenkraftwagen" rather than the briefer "Auto"? Stefan explains that "Personenkraftwagen" is more formal. Thus, one might read in the newspaper that the robbers escaped "in einem PKW."

We did not get around to abbreviating Donaudampfschifffarhtsgesellschaftskapitaensgattin, but following the StÜPl model, it would probably be something like DoDaSchFaGeKaGa, which has the benefit of actually being pronounceable.