Now before you start getting jealous, I am not writing this on the beach. The picture (Away From Keyboard, in case you’re wondering) is just to try to combat January blues.

Today I have a wonderful discovery to share with you – the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.

Abbreviations are one of things that really irritate me. Just made to exclude others who are not “in the know”. Unfortunately, we have to use, understand, and, for some of us, translate these nasty little tikes. And OK, I will admit, sometimes, they can save quite a bit of time writing out long titles.

Digressing slightly – I found this acronym, apparently included in the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology and meaning “The laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR”
NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT (56 letters, 54 in Cyrillic). (Source: Wordnik.com)

Anyway, back to Cardiff. This what they say about themselves: “This web-based service allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. A wide selection of major foreign language law publications is also included. Publications from over 295 jurisdictions are featured in the Index.”

Why use the Cardiff Index?

• If you have a legal abbreviation you can find the name of the publication to which the abbreviation commonly refers;
• You can discover how to abbreviate the name of a law publication to create a recognised legal citation. You will be given the preferred citation abbreviation (if one exists) as well as other, commonly used but unauthorised abbreviations for the title;
• To check full details about any title included in the database to help identify, for example, which is the relevant title, whether its name has altered, whether the title is part of a series of publications, whether it is reprinted in another publication, etc.

The Index is still under development,  but it looks pretty excellent to me!