There are several articles on jargon elsewhere on this site, and in 2018 I wrote about the proliferation of acronyms and their effect on listeners and readers too (that article is here*). Now in 2021 the cult ‘appointment television’ crime series Line of Duty has reignited debate on the status of codes and abbreviations as a mainstay of officialese and the private, exclusive languages that both fascinate and intimidate the public. The long-running hit police drama The Bill is due to return to screens very soon, no doubt introducing civilians to some updated terminology and slang of its own.
In March I spoke to Amit Katwala, who was researching this topic for Wired magazine, and the resulting article is here, followed for any students, teachers – and fans of Line of Duty – by a list of links to sources of both real-life and fictional acronyms and discussion of them…
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/line-of-duty-police-jargon
ACTUAL (2019)
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/guide-to-police-slang-codewords-2074442
OLD-FASHIONED (THE BILL)
https://thebill.fandom.com/wiki/Police_lingo
ANECDOTAL, FROM THE 90S
http://www.f.waseda.jp/buda/library/seabrook.html
LINE OF DUTY 2021
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/line-of-duty-acronyms-abbreviations-guide/
THE MET’S OFFICIAL JARGON GUIDE
https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/af/accessing-information/met/glossary/
CAMBRIDGESHIRE POLICE’S VERSION
https://www.cambs.police.uk/information-and-services/About-us/Jargon
While the Sun satirises them, the Guardian has perceptively gone beyond the linguistic challenges and plot contortions in Line of Duty and detected underlying references to current political realities…
In May 2023 The Times tackled the same subject (their article may be paywalled)…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jargon-obsessed-police-struggle-with-letters-of-the-law-xqr8w6ns9
*https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/10/15/at-war-with-acronyms-tmi-via-tla/
tony thorne 