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I read on fr.wikipedia.org:

Phonétique : très usité en téléphonie mobile (SMS) il consiste à remplacer syllabes ou mots par des signes ayant la même sonorité. Exemples : C pour c'est, 2 pour de ou a+ pour à plus (tard).

and https://www.studysmarter.fr/resumes/anglais/grammaire-anglaise/langage-texto/:

Un gramogramme (également connu sous le nom de mot-lettre) est un mot/groupe de mots qui est phonétiquement similaire à une lettre, un groupe de lettres ou un nombre et qui peut être écrit de cette façon. Par exemple, see you peut s'écrire CU.

Sounds similar to me. What is the difference, if any, between "gramogramme" and "abréviation phonétique"?

1 Answer 1

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The main difference is that everybody will understand what you are talking about when you say abréviation phonétique and very few will (if any) when you say gramogramme.

Gramogramme looks like some kind of a pun built the same way as words used in linguistics phonogramme, morphogramme, idéogramme, logogramme, etc. where the suffix -gramme means 'written' (as a word), while the prefix means 'written' (as a letter), so technically, gramogramme is a "letter word".

That word looks to have been first coined in English1:

Another of our creations is the name “gramogram,” which describes alphabet words (like “eff,” a word for a lizard, and “cay,” a small island).
Rod Evans and Irwin Berent, Getting Your Words’ Worth, 1993

An example they give is:

It's EZR than you think to XL (gramograms) at word play.

1 French linguists would likely have chosen grammogramme spelling instead.

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