XPost: rec.arts.books, alt.books, alt.usage.english
Le 03/08/2025 à 07:42, Richard Heathfield a écrit :
On 03/08/2025 07:01, Hibou wrote:
The Americans also use a full stop after abbreviations such as Dr. and
Mr.. (That double full stop is a Hibouisme - la logique avant tout !)
In BrE, a full stop is used if the last letter of the abbreviation is
not the last letter of the word - etc., Feb., Rev., but Mr not Mr. -
and to avoid ambiguity - to the relief of the infamous coy. commander.
I was taught 40 years ago not to punctuate abbreviations, at least not
in business correspondence. It seemed like weird advice at the time, but
it has stood up to 40 years' hard use and has worn well.
Maybe what is usual in BrE isn't quite as usual as you thought.
That's possible, and certainly full stops can seem fussy (and I would
not use them) in such abbreviations as GEC (the company, not Conan
Doyle's hero), BMW, IBM, and AT&T - or indeed, AI (aircraft
interception), RF, QED, AC, ADSL, AM, EPROM, etc..
The advice I quoted comes from Carey's 'Mind the Stop' (Penguin, 1971).
The main concern is to remove ambiguity, and after that to be consistent.
That's all that comes to mind for the moment.
After writing that, I went through to breakfast, to be faced by an American-style time display on the DAB radio: "07:05". "07.05" in BrE,
though so pervasive is American influence that many Britons know it not.
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