Abbreviation
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An abbreviation (from
An abbreviation is a shortening by any of these or other methods.
Types
Acronyms, initialisms, contractions and crasis share some
An initialism is an abbreviation pronounced by spelling out each letter, i.e. FBI (/ˌɛf.biːˈaɪ/), USA (/ˌjuː.ɛsˈeɪ/), IBM (/ˌaɪ.biːˈɛm/), BBC (/ˌbiː.biːˈsiː/)
A contraction is a reduction in the length of a word or phrase made by omitting certain of its letters or syllables. Consequently, contractions are a subset of abbreviations. Often, but not always, the contraction includes the first and last letters or elements. Examples of contractions are "li'l" (for "little"), "I'm" (for "I am"), and "he'd've" (for "he would have").
History
Abbreviations have a long history. They were created to avoid spelling out whole words. This might be done to save time and space (given that many inscriptions were carved in stone) and also to provide secrecy. In both Greece and Rome the reduction of words to single letters was common.[3] In Roman inscriptions, "Words were commonly abbreviated by using the initial letter or letters of words, and most inscriptions have at least one abbreviation". However, "some could have more than one meaning, depending on their context. (For example, ⟨A⟩ can be an abbreviation for many words, such as ager, amicus, annus, as, Aulus, Aurelius, aurum and avus.)"[4] Many frequent abbreviations consisted of more than one letter: for example COS for consul and COSS for its nominative etc. plural consules.
Abbreviations were frequently used in English from its earliest days. Manuscripts of copies of the
Mastɔ subwardenɔ y ɔmēde me to you. And wherɔ y wrot to you the last wyke that y trouyde itt good to differrɔ thelectionɔ ovɔ to quīdenaɔ tinitatis y have be thougħt me synɔ that itt woll be thenɔ a bowte mydsomɔ.
— Warden of
In the Early Modern English period, between the 15th and 17th centuries, the thorn Þ was used for th, as in Þe ('the'). In modern times, ⟨Þ⟩ was often used (in the form ⟨y⟩) for promotional reasons, as in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.[7]
During the growth of
Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. This question is considered below.
Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones and the Internet during the 1990s led to a marked rise in colloquial abbreviation. This was due largely to increasing popularity of textual communication services such as instant and text messaging. The original
In HTML, abbreviations can be annotated using <abbr title="Meaning of the abbreviation.">abbreviation</abbr>
to reveal its meaning by hovering the cursor.
Style conventions in English
In modern English, there are several conventions for abbreviations, and the choice may be confusing. The only rule universally accepted is that one should be consistent, and to make this easier, publishers express their preferences in a style guide. Some questions which arise are shown below.
Lowercase letters
If the original word was capitalized then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When a word is abbreviated to more than a single letter and was originally spelled with lower case letters then there is no need for capitalization. However, when abbreviating a phrase where only the first letter of each word is taken, then all letters should be capitalized, as in YTD for year-to-date, PCB for printed circuit board and FYI for for your information. However, see the following section regarding abbreviations that have become common vocabulary: these are no longer written with capital letters.
Periods (full stops) and spaces
A period (full stop) is often used to signify an abbreviation, but opinion is divided as to when and if this should happen.
According to
Example | Category | Short form | Source |
---|---|---|---|
Doctor | Contraction | Dr | D——r |
Professor | Abbreviation | Prof. | Prof... |
The Reverend
|
Abbreviation | Rev. | Rev... |
The Reverend
|
Contraction | Revd | Rev——d |
The Right Honourable | Contraction and Abbreviation | Rt Hon. | R——t Hon... |
Some British style guides, such as those for The Guardian and The Economist, require that full stops be entirely omitted from all abbreviations.[12][13]
In American English, the period is usually included regardless of whether or not it is a contraction, e.g. Dr. or Mrs.. In some cases, periods are optional, as in either US or U.S. for United States, EU or E.U. for European Union, and UN or U.N. for United Nations. There are some house styles, however—American ones included—that remove the periods from almost all abbreviations. For example:
- The U.S. Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices advises that periods should not be used with abbreviations on road signs, except for cardinal directions as part of a destination name. (For example, "Northwest Blvd", "W. Jefferson", and "PED XING" all follow this recommendation.)
- "; initials within persons' names (such as "George R. Smith"); and "St." within persons' names when the person prefers it (such as "Emily R. St. Clair") (but not in city names such as St Louis or St Paul).
Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since entered the vocabulary as generic words are no longer written with capital letters nor with any periods. Examples are sonar, radar, lidar, laser, snafu, and scuba.
Today, spaces are generally not used between single-letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S."
When an abbreviation appears at the end of a sentence, only one period is used: The capital of the United States is Washington, D.C.
Plural forms
There is a question about how to pluralize abbreviations, particularly acronyms. Some writers tend to pluralize abbreviations by adding 's (apostrophe s), as in "two PC's have broken screens", although
However, the 1999 style guide for The New York Times states that the addition of an apostrophe is necessary when pluralizing all abbreviations, preferring "PC's, TV's and VCR's".[18]
Following those who would generally omit the apostrophe, to form the plural of run batted in, simply add an s to the end of RBI.[19]
- RBIs
For all other rules, see below:
To form the plural of an abbreviation, a number, or a capital letter used as a noun, simply add a lowercase s to the end. Apostrophes following decades and single letters are also common.
- A group of MPs
- The roaring 20s
- Mind your Ps and Qs
To indicate the plural of the abbreviation or symbol of a unit of measure, the same form is used as in the singular.
- 1 lb or 20 lb
- 1 ft or 16 ft
- 1 min or 45 min
When an abbreviation contains more than one full point, Hart's Rules recommends putting the s after the final one.
- Ph.D.s
- M.Phil.s
- the d.t.s
However, subject to any house style or consistency requirement, the same plurals may be rendered less formally as:
- PhDs
- MPhils
- the DTs. (This is the recommended form in the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.)
According to Hart's Rules, an apostrophe may be used in rare cases where clarity calls for it, for example when letters or symbols are referred to as objects.
- The x's of the equation
- Dot the i's and cross the t's
However, the apostrophe can be dispensed with if the items are set in italics or quotes:
- The xs of the equation
- Dot the 'i's and cross the 't's
In Latin, and continuing to the derivative forms in European languages as well as English, single-letter abbreviations had the plural being a doubling of the letter for note-taking. Most of these deal with writing and publishing. A few longer abbreviations use this as well.
Singular abbreviation | Word/phrase | Plural abbreviation | Discipline |
---|---|---|---|
d. | didot | dd. | typography |
f. | following line or page | ff. | notes |
F. | folio | Ff. | literature |
h. | hand | hh. | horse height |
J. | Justice | JJ. | law (job title) |
l. | line | ll. | notes |
MS | manuscript | MSS | notes |
op. | opus (plural: opera) | opp. | notes |
p. | page | pp. | notes |
Q. | quarto | Qq. | literature |
s. (or § )
|
section | ss. (or §§) | notes |
v. | volume | vv. | notes |
Conventions followed by publications and newspapers
United States
Publications based in the U.S. tend to follow the style guides of
United Kingdom
Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:
- For the sake of convenience, many British publications, including the BBC and The Guardian, have completely done away with the use of full stops or periods in all abbreviations. These include:
- Social titles, e.g. Ms or Mr (though these would usually have not had full stops—see above) Capt, Prof, etc.;
- Two-letter abbreviations for countries ("US", not "U.S.");
- Abbreviations beyond three letters (full caps for all except initialisms[clarification needed]);
- Words seldom abbreviated with lower case letters ("PR", instead of "p.r.", or "pr")
- Names ("FW de Klerk", "GB Whiteley", "Park JS"). A notable exception is The Economist which writes "Mr F. W. de Klerk".
- Scientific units (see Measurement below).
- Acronyms are often referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalized. For instance, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as "Sars" or "SARS" (compare with "laser" which has made the full transition to an English word and is rarely capitalised at all).
- Initialisms are always written in capitals; for example the "British Broadcasting Corporation" is abbreviated to "BBC", never "Bbc". An initialism is also an acronym but is not pronounced as a word.
- When abbreviating scientific units, no space is added between the number and unit (100mph, 100m, 10cm, 10°C). (This is contrary to the SI standard; see below.)
Miscellaneous and general rules
- A doubled letter appears in abbreviations of some Welsh names, as in Welsh the double "l" is a separate sound: "Ll. George" for (British prime minister) David Lloyd George.
- Some titles, such as "Reverend" and "Honourable", are spelt out when preceded by "the", rather than as "Rev." or "Hon." respectively. This is true for most British publications, and some in the United States.
- A repeatedly used abbreviation should be spelt out for identification on its first occurrence in a written or spoken passage.[20] Abbreviations likely to be unfamiliar to many readers should be avoided.
Measurements: abbreviations or symbols
Writers often use shorthand to denote units of measure. Such shorthand can be an abbreviation, such as "in" for "inch" or can be a symbol such as "km" for "kilometre".
In the International System of Units (SI) manual[21] the word "symbol" is used consistently to define the shorthand used to represent the various SI units of measure. The manual also defines the way in which units should be written, the principal rules being:
- The conventions for upper and lower case letters must be observed—for example 1 MW (megawatts) is equal to 1,000,000 watts and 1,000,000,000 mW (milliwatts).
- No periods should be inserted between letters—for example "m.s" (which is an approximation of "m·s", which correctly uses middle dot) is the symbol for "metres multiplied by seconds", but "ms" is the symbol for milliseconds.
- No periods should follow the symbol unless the syntax of the sentence demands otherwise (for example a full stop at the end of a sentence).
- The singular and plural versions of the symbol are identical—not all languages use the letter "s" to denote a plural.
Syllabic abbreviation
A syllabic abbreviation is usually formed from the initial syllables of several words, such as
Albanian
In Albanian, syllabic acronyms are sometimes used for composing a person's name, such as
Other such names which are used commonly in recent decades are GETOAR, composed from
English
Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English. Some UK government agencies such as Ofcom (Office of Communications) and the former Oftel (Office of Telecommunications) use this style.
Sections of California are also often colloquially syllabically abbreviated, as in NorCal (Northern California), CenCal (Central California), and SoCal (Southern California). Additionally, in the context of Los Angeles, the syllabic abbreviation SoHo (Southern Hollywood) refers to the southern portion of the Hollywood neighborhood.
Partially syllabic abbreviations are preferred by the US Navy, as they increase readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence
Syllabic abbreviations are a prominent feature of
A more recent syllabic abbreviation has emerged with the disease
German
Syllabic abbreviations were and are common in
With the National Socialist German Workers' Party gaining power came a frenzy of government reorganisation, and with it a series of entirely new syllabic abbreviations. The single national police force amalgamated from the Schutzpolizeien of the various states became the OrPo (
Syllabic abbreviations are not only used in politics, however. Many business names, trademarks, and service marks from across Germany are created on the same pattern: for a few examples, there is
Russian
Syllabic abbreviations are very common in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. They are often used as names of organizations. Historically, popularization of abbreviations was a way to simplify mass-education in 1920s (see Likbez).
Leninist organisations such as the
Spanish
Syllabic abbreviations are common in
Malay and Indonesian
In Southeast Asian languages, especially in
Malaysian abbreviation often uses letters from each word, while Indonesia usually uses syllables; although some cases do not follow the style. For example, general elections in Malaysian Malay often shortened into PRU (pilihan raya umum) while Indonesian often shortened into pemilu (pemilihan umum). Another example is Ministry of Health in which Malaysian Malay uses KKM (Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia), compared to Indonesian Kemenkes (Kementerian Kesehatan).
Chinese and Japanese kanji
East Asian languages whose writing systems use Chinese characters form abbreviations similarly by using key Chinese characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the United Nations, kokusai rengō (国際連合) is often abbreviated to kokuren (国連). (Such abbreviations are called ryakugo (略語) in Japanese; see also Japanese abbreviated and contracted words). The syllabic abbreviation of kanji words is frequently used for universities: for instance, Tōdai (東大) for Tōkyō daigaku (東京大学, University of Tokyo) and is used similarly in Chinese: Běidà (北大) for Běijīng Dàxué (北京大学, Peking University). Korean universities often follow the same conventions, such as Hongdae (홍대) as short for Hongik Daehakgyo, or Hongik University. The English phrase "Gung ho" originated as a Chinese abbreviation.
See also
- Abbreviation (music) – abbreviation in musical notation
- Blend word – Word consisting of two words put together
- Clipping (morphology) – Reduction of a word to one of its parts
- Gramogram – Group of letters pronounced as if a word
- List of abbreviations used in medical prescriptions
- List of abbreviations in photography
- Acronym – Word or name made from the initial components of the words of a sequence
- List of acronyms
- List of business and finance abbreviations
- List of classical abbreviations
- List of medieval abbreviations
- Neologism – Recent term that is gaining acceptance
- Numeronym – Number-based word
- RAS syndrome – Acronym redundantly coupled with its word(s)
- SMS language – Abbreviated slang used in text messaging
- Three-letter acronym – Abbreviation consisting of three letters
- The abbreviations used in the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary
- Unicode alias names and abbreviations – Names and aliases of Unicode characters
Notes
- ^ Modern text messaging is not affected by this issue although, behind the scenes, longer messages are carried in multiple 160-byte short messages in a chain. Characters not in GSM 03.38 require two bytes.
References
- ^ "brevis/breve, brevis M". Latin is Simple Online Dictionary. Archived from the original on 29 March 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
- ^ OCLC 225098030.
- OCLC 551503698.
- OCLC 882540013.
- OCLC 1097127034.
- ^ a b Fletcher, John M.; Upton, Christopher A. (1 February 2004). "The End of Short Cuts: The use of abbreviated English by the fellows of Merton College, Oxford 1483-1660". The Simplified Spelling Society. Archived from the original on October 15, 2007.
- ^ Lass, R., The Cambridge History of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, 2006, Vol. 2, p. 36.
- ^ "The Choctaw Expression 'Okeh' and the Americanism 'Okay'". Jim Fay. 2007-09-13. Archived from the original on 2010-12-24. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
- ^ "What does "OK" stand for?". The Straight Dope. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
- ISBN 978-0-19-954490-5
- ISBN 9780191727078.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
Do not use full points in abbreviations, or spaces between initials, including those in proper names: IMF, mph, eg, 4am, M&S, No 10, AN Wilson, WH Smith, etc.
- OCLC 236346040.
Do not use full stops in abbreviations...
- ^ Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (7th ed.). University of Chicago Press. subsection 20.1.2.
- ^ Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition 2009, subsection 3.2.7.g
- ^ Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 5th Edition 2001, subsection 3.28
- ^ Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition 2010, subsection 4.29
- ^ Siegal, AM., Connolly, WG., The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Three Rivers Press, 1999, p. 24.
- ISBN 978-0-19-538275-4.
- ISBN 0020130856
- ISBN 92-822-2213-6, archived(PDF) from the original on 2021-06-04, retrieved 2021-12-16
- ISBN 978-0-452-28423-4.
External links
- Media related to Abbreviation at Wikimedia Commons
- Acronyms at Curlie