Abbreviations are shortened forms of words or short phrases made up of groups of letters.
Their motive is to offer simply-comprehensible substitutes for clusters of terms and so aid the studying attempt. but, to the confusion of readers, there are only some abbreviations whose form has been standardized the world over.http://listoffullforms.com
The exceptions are the usual global metric abbreviations for thousand, thousandth and million which can be respectively ‘k’, ‘m’ and ‘M’. these 3 abbreviations are based totally on three precise languages, ie, ‘k’ stands for kilo (a thousand in classical Greek), ‘m’ stands for mille (a thousand in classical Latin) and ‘M’ is the abbreviation for the English word million and is capitalized to distinguish it from ‘m’, one thousandth. The ‘m’ for million is, but, commonly written in decrease-case when it is utilized in a non-metric context, eg, US$5m.
decrease-case abbreviations
We examine with the aid of way of shifting our eyes from right to left throughout a line of letters which is probably broken up into groups called phrases. decrease-case letters are predominant because of the reality they may be quicker and easier to examine and do now not interrupt the word-go together with the float with the resource of making the eyes circulate up and down. therefore, as a desired rule, capitals need to now not be used unless there is a superb cause to achieve this, eg, to reveal the start of a sentence.
as a result, measures including ‘kg’, ‘km’ and ‘kph’ are nearly constantly in lower-case. when they will be preceded via the use of a determine, the current practice isn’t always to position a area most of the figure and the abbreviation, eg, ‘0pm, 20kg, 45lb, 80kph, 50mph, and so on.
not unusual terms
by means of commonplace consensus, abbreviations of commonplace phrases, consisting of ‘ie’ for ‘that is’, also are in lower case.
In contemporary written English there aren’t any elements (intervals or complete stops) many of the letters (as used to be the case) due to the reality those are taken into consideration redundant as they do now not add to the recognisability of the abbreviations. All readers instinctively understand what ‘ie’, ‘eg’, ‘viz’, and ‘and so forth’ stand for.
but these abbreviations are almost continually found with the aid of a comma (which represents the natural pause when announcing the ones phrases out loud), even though the comma too have to without issues be taken into consideration redundant.
Capitalizing abbreviations
In most different instances abbreviations are nearly generally capitalized – even in which they consult with terms or organizations of related terms that do not take preliminary capitals because they encompass commonplace nouns, which includes CAP for ‘not unusual agricultural insurance’, GDP for ‘gross domestic product’, and so forth. The purpose of this capitalization is to make the abbreviation more recognizable as such which, in those instances, outweighs the want to preserve the waft of phrases as smooth as feasible.
The plural of these abbreviations is usually indicated through a lower-case ‘s’, eg, IOUs.
Abbreviations which may be mixtures of numerous phrases, every of it’s abbreviated to a couple of letter, are a aggregate of capital and decrease case letters. these specially occur in instructional titles. each element of the mixed abbreviation starts offevolved with a capital letter and lower-case is used for the opportunity letters as in, for example, PhD, BComm, and BEng.
Distances and quantities
there’s general agreement that ‘kilograms’ may be shortened to ‘kg’ and ‘kilometers’ to ‘km’, and that ‘mph’ and ‘kph’ stand for ‘miles in keeping with hour’ and ‘kilometers in line with hour’. however there’s much less settlement on the diagnosed abbreviations for different measures of distances and portions.
Many guides have hectares, miles, and pages spelled out in full, although ‘ha’ (for hectares) and ‘m’ (for miles) appear to be appreciably applicable. word that the context wherein the abbreviation ‘m’ seems will permit the reader to distinguish among ‘m’ for miles, ‘m’ for million and ‘m’ for 1000th.
As regards ‘web page’ and ‘pages’, especially in indicating page numbers, there may be a terrific deal confusion. so that you can keep away from unpleasant elements and preserve all of your abbreviations in track with each different, stylistically speaking, it’s miles possibly better to put in writing the ones terms in complete, eg, internet page five, pages 5 to 15. but this writer sees no trouble with, for example, p5 or pp5-15, which can be completely comprehensible.
Names of persons
There also seems to be no need for the elements or intervals between the initials of a person’s name, that might these days be considered absolutely redundant. ‘P D Kennedy’, as an example, is in reality as comprehensible as ‘P.D. Kennedy’ and is also likely quicker to examine.
however whilst the initials of a person are contained in a firm’s legit call, it would be respectful to have a look at what that business agency does while it writes its call, eg, F.W. Woolworth. word that when factors are used after the initials there is no place many of the number one point and the following initial.
scientific devices
The abbreviations for most medical devices named after individuals, together with Gabriel Fahrenheit, Anders Celsius, and James Watt, normally take an initial capital (perhaps out of apprehend for their illustrious eponyms). as a consequence we’ve got ‘F’, ‘C’ and ‘W’ for Fahrenheit, centigrade and watt respectively.
but any attachments to these abbreviations denoting multiples go in lower case, besides the usual abbreviation for the attachment is in top case. accordingly we get ‘kW’ for kilowatt (1,000 watts), and ‘mW’ (1000th of a watt), however ‘MW’ (one million watts) as ‘M’ is the internationally ordinary state-of-the-art for ‘million’ at the same time as used in the metric gadget.
The ampersand in abbreviations
The usually standard exercise is that the ampersand have to be utilized in an abbreviation even as it’s miles a part of the call of an enterprise, eg, AT&T. word the lack of areas on both thing of the ampersand.
it’s also commonplace exercising to apply the ampersand at the same time as a phrase such as common nouns (which would commonly have lower-case preliminary letters) is abbreviated, as in ‘R&D’ (research and improvement), ‘S&L’ (savings and loans), and so on.
the global of computer systems
In nerdsville there can be little consensus as to how multiples of bytes must be abbreviated. Advertisers generally tend to favour GB for gigabytes, on the equal time as editors most customarily use Gb in reproduction with but a loss of consistency even in the equal booklet. a few regulations for geeks may be derived primarily based totally on common sense and typically ordinary paperwork for abbreviations in other contexts.
As ‘byte’ is a not unusual noun (there are hundreds of them round), it should be abbreviated to a lower case ‘b’. however bytes are seldom noted with out a prefixed more than one which includes kilo for thousand, mega for million, giga for one thousand million, or exa for a thousand million giga, ie, a billion billion.
hence the abbreviations for diverse multiples for bytes might be: kb, Mb, Gb and Eb, in all instances retaining the ‘b’ for byte lower-case as the general rule is: decrease-case except pinnacle case is required. A lower-case ‘m’ for mega (which comes from the classical Greek megas which means ‘large’) could seem appropriate on the idea that the ‘m’ is derived from a classical language; however megabyte refers to 1,000,000 bytes, and so the internationally everyday M for million in that metric machine is commonly preferred by means of way of editors.
again, a lower-case ‘g’ for giga (which comes from the classical Greek gigas, a big) might be well-decided on; but it seems that a capital ‘G’ is extra across the world great, in all likelihood in imitation of the capital ‘M’ for mega. The identical argument applies for ‘e’ for ‘exa’, although this has only come into use pretty currently and there was little usage of this abbreviation thus far – Eb or an exabyte refers to 1018 bytes.
The chemical factors
There seems to be a honest little bit of international agreement on the abbreviations of the elements of depend, ie, the materials that can not be resolved into less difficult substances with the aid of chemical way.
wherein person elements are represented via a one-letter abbreviation, that letter is capitalized, eg, ‘C’ for carbon; on the same time as one-of-a-kind isotopes of an detail are outstanding through raised prefixes, eg, ’14C’ for carbon-14. If but the abbreviation for an detail consists of two letters, the second one letter is lower-case, eg, ‘Pb’ for lead.
In combinations, the man or woman elements retain these traits, ie, the primary letters of the person elements inside the combination are capitalized, eg, ‘CO4’ for carbon dioxide. commonly agreed exceptions consist of ‘CFCs’ for chlorofluorocarbons and ‘NOX’ for oxides of nitrogen.
Pronounceable abbreviations
Abbreviations that may be suggested are typically acronyms, ie, terms original from or based totally totally on the preliminary letters or syllables of various terms, along with radar, NATO, UNESCO. these aren’t generally preceded via the specific article.
other businesses, which cannot be stated as phrases, typically require the right article, eg, the CIA, the BBC, and the UNHCR. The exception is commercial corporations, eg, BHS (British homes stores), and CRH (Cement Roadstone Holdings).
Pronounceable abbreviations which can be made of bits of terms must be written as proper nouns, ie, with an initial capital letter. Examples encompass Unicef, Mercosur, Frelimo, however there are loads of those in commonplace use. note that exceptional the initial letter is capitalized – except the phrase is a agency name made of numerous words, eg, ConsGold for Consolidated Gold, a mining organisation.
Introducing abbreviations
maximum humans want an explanation as to what an abbreviation stands for. for this reason the primary time an corporation is delivered in a piece of writing, the everyday exercise is to jot down down it out in entire and insert the abbreviation in brackets after the entire name; eg, european community and data safety organization (ENISA).
but, if the name of the employer is another time used at the start of the next sentence or near enough to the call written out in whole for the relationship amongst them to be made with the aid of the use of the reader, there appears no want to place the abbreviation in brackets after the whole name. there is, of route, no need to provide the abbreviation in any respect if the business enterprise is best cited as soon as inside the piece of writing.
The only exception normally allowed to this ‘introduction rule’ is wherein an abbreviation is so extensively diagnosed that it’s far applied in common speech extra often than the entire name, eg, the CIA, FBI, BBC, and VOA. those and comparable famous abbreviations may be used the primary time the employer to which they refer is cited in a bit of writing.
making use of not unusual abbreviations
anything form you select out for a particular rule, ask your self these questions: Is the form chosen the maximum precise one? Is its that means as easy as feasible? The first rate shape for an abbreviation is the one that lets in you to reply ‘certain’ without hesitation to both questions. as soon as you have got positioned that abbreviation, make sure to use it always at some point of the piece you’re writing.
A brief list of not unusual abbreviations is attached to this article. these are the most appropriate or intelligible forms (in the author’s opinion). if you disagree, please permit me apprehend by way of way of e mail.