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I've noticed a trend among "younger people" to shorten words by simply cutting the ending off.

For example, instead of inspiration they might say something like inspiraysh.

What is the proper way (if there is one) of spelling such shortened words?

Edit: It seems to me that the natural thing to do would be removing the last few letters: i.e. the spelling inspiraysh would make perfect sense to me if the original word was inspirayshon. But in case of inspiration this is not an option, since it would alter the pronunciation.

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    @JLG No, if it's a shortened noun I think it isn't -ish (an adjective)
    – user10893
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 19:33
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    I think he means like "vacay" for vacation.
    – Kit Z. Fox
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 19:34
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    "delish" for "delicous" is an example I'm familiar with - it seems to be simply representing the sound (sh) without regard for the original word's spelling. Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 20:32
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    It is ironic that you should ask for a proper way to do something that is itself an improperly done thing: there can be no correct answer here.
    – tchrist
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 20:54
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    Adding to Joe's and Kristina's examples, here's a closely related question: How do I spell the truncation 'Cas', as in 'Sports Casual/Sports Cas'?
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Mar 13, 2013 at 21:03

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If it's not a standard word, there's no standard way to spell it. I would spell it as it sounds (inspiraysh) because just chopping off letters would be confusing. (The usual caveats about not using it at all in a formal context and explaining it if necessary apply, but if I'd already considered that and decided I really did want to use this bit of slang, I would spell it exactly as it's pronounced.)

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