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…
*https://language-and-innovation.com/2018/10/15/at-war-with-acronyms-tmi-via-tla/
tony thorne 