The following abbreviations and acronyms often appear in hmcw postings:

BB	Das Braune Buch (The Brown Book): Wagner's occasional diary.

CT	Cosimas Tagebücher (Cosima's Diaries): the private diaries of
Wagner's second wife, Cosima.  See the Wagner Books FAQ, section VI-B.

Gd-N-n  Götterdämmerung, act N, scene n.

GSD	Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen: Wagner's own compilation of
his collected writings.  Volume X was added after Wagner's death but in
accordance with his instructions. See the Wagner Books FAQ, section VI-C.

MHG	Middle High German (Mittelhochdeutsch): the medieval variant of
the German language in which Wolfram's 'Parzival', Gottfried's 'Tristan'
and the anonymous 'Nibelungenlied' were written.  It bears approximately
the same relation to modern High German as does Chaucer's Middle English 
to modern English.

ML	Mein Leben (My Life): Wagner's unreliable autobiography.  See the 
Wagner Books FAQ, section II-A.

MS	Manuscript

MSS	Manuscripts

MW	Mathilde Wesendonck: see sections III-K and III-T below.

ON	Old Norse: the original language of many of the sagas and poems on
which Wagner drew for elements of his 'Ring'.  Some of those sources, such
as the Edda poems, are in a dialect of ON called Old Icelandic.

PW	Prose Works: W.A. Ellis' notoriously inaccurate translation, into 
a strange kind of English, of the prose writings in GSD.  See the Wagner 
Books FAQ, section VI-C.

R-n     Das Rheingold, scene n.

RMO	rec.music.opera: a newsgroup established for the discussion of
opera but now mainly devoted to flame wars and the display of psychotic 
behaviour.

RW	Richard Wagner.

S-N-n   Siegfried, act N, scene n.

SSD	Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen: an extended compilation of
Wagner's prose and poetry.  See the Wagner Books FAQ, section VI-C.

T&I	Tristan und Isolde, Handlung in drei Aufzügen, WWV 90.

W-as-N	Wagner-as-Nazi: a lunatic fringe of writers who have promoted the 
idea that Richard Wagner was a proto-Nazi.   It includes Hartmut Zelinsky 
and Joachim Köhler.

W-N-n   Die Walküre, act N, scene n.

WWR	The World as Will and Representation (Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung) by Arthur Schopenhauer: the book that changed Wagner's life.

WWV	Wagner Werk-Verzeichnis: the catalogue of Richard Wagner's
musical and dramatic works.  See the Wagner Books FAQ, section III-E.