I used the paper copy until a few years ago, so never tackled this particular issue, but I understand how overwhelming the abbreviations can be in that work.Wes Wood in the [url=http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2773&start=50#p17493]Xenophon, [b][i]Oeconomicus[/i][/b][/url] thread wrote:[W]here can I find what the abbreviations in LSJ mean? I have begun to recognize some of them by repeated (mis)use, but I can't flip to the front of a digital copy like I would in a book to find out.
It is the product of a Western European scholarly tradition. Consequently, many of the abbreviations you are meeting are abbreviations of Latin words and names. After you add water to the abreviation and stir till it no longer contains lumps of dry powder, you will still have to learn the English equivalents, eg. Ran. -> Ranae -> Frogs.
In fact, the original name of the work in Greek is βάτραχοι. In a Greek to Greek work, the Greek word is abbreviated.
Additionally, after you can recognise the which work is being cited, to get the most of the data, you then need to acquire the background knowledge to place the work in a genre (Old comedy), a location (Athens) and a time-frame (405 BCE), and associate it with an authour (Aristophanes).
The thing that I'm still working on in that are the time-frames.