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An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'' "short") is a shortened form of a Word or Phrase . Usually, but not always, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase. For example, the word "abbreviation" can itself be represented by the abbreviation "abbr." or "abbrev." TYPES OF ABBREVIATIONS Apart from the common form of shortening one word, there are other types of abbreviations. These include Acronym And Initialism (including Three-letter Acronym s), Apocope , Clipping , Elision , Syncope , syllabic abbreviation, and Portmanteau . Syllabic abbreviation Related article: Clipping (lexicography) A syllabic abbreviation (SA) is an abbreviation formed from (usually) initial Syllable s of several Words , such as '' Interpol '' for ''International '''pol'''ice'', but should be distinguished from Portmanteau x. They are usually written in Lower Case , sometimes starting with a Capital Letter , and are always Pronounced as words rather than letter by letter. Use in various languages Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English or French , but are common in certain languages, like German and Russian . They prevailed in '' for ''Schutzpolizist''. Even now Germans call part of their police '' Kripo '' for ''Kriminalpolizei''. Syllabic abbreviations were also typical of German language used in the German Democratic Republic , for example, '' Stasi '' for ''Staatssicherheit'' ("state security", the secret police and secret service) or ''Vopo'' for ''Volkspolizist'' ("people's policeman"). Some syllabic abbreviations from Russian that are familiar to English speakers include Samizdat and Kolkhoz . The English names for the Soviet " Comintern " (Communist '''Intern'''ational) and " Milrevcom " ('''Mil'''itary '''Rev'''olution Committee) are further examples. Orwell's novel '' 1984 '' uses fictional syllabic abbreviations like "Ingsoc" (English '''Soc'''ialism) to evoke the use of language under the Nazi and Soviet regimes. ( Beijing ), ''Yondae'' (연대) for the Yonsei University , ''Seouldae'' (서울대) for the Seoul National University and ''Tōdai'' (東大) for the University Of Tokyo . Syllabic abbreviations in names of organizations Syllabic abbreviations are preferred by the US Navy as it increases readability amidst the large number of Initialism s that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence '' DESRON 6'' is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6," and '' DEFCON '' means "Defense Condition". STYLE CONVENTIONS IN ENGLISH delete per talk page notice 12 Dec 2006 with additional notice to applying editor I eventually found -> 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 . Questions which arise include those in the following subsections. Lower case letters If the original word was capitalized, then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When abbreviating words spelled with lower case letters, there is no need for capitalization, therefore no need for a consistent rule. Periods (full stops) and spaces A period (full stop) is sometimes written after an abbreviated word, but there is much disagreement and many exceptions. There is never a stop/period between letters of the same word. For example, ''Tiberius'' is abbreviated as ''Tb.'' and not as ''T.b.''. In formal British English it is more common to write abbreviations with full stops if the word has been cut at the point of abbreviation but not otherwise: for example, ''Street'' — ''"St — becomes ''"St."'', but ''"Saint"'' — ''"S[ain t"'' — becomes ''"St"''. In American English , the period is usually added if the abbreviation might otherwise be interpreted as a word, but some American writers do not use a period here. Sometimes, periods are used for certain acronyms but not others; a notable instance in American English is to write '' United States '', '' European Union '', and '' United Nations '' as ''U.S.'', ''EU'', and ''UN'' respectively. A third standard removes the full stops from all abbreviations (both ''"Saint"'' and ''"Street"'' become ''"St"'') . Acronym s that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since entered the vocabulary as generic words are no longer abbreviated with capital letters nor with any periods. Examples are Sonar , Radar , Lidar , Laser , and Scuba . Spaces are generally not used between single letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S.". Plural Forms 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.
To form the plural of an abbreviation with periods, a lowercase letter used as a noun, and abbreviations or capital letters that would be ambiguous or confusing if the 's' alone were added, use an apostrophe and an ''s''.
While some authors use the apostrophe in all plural abbreviated forms, it is generally best avoided except as above to prevent ambiguity with the possessive form. {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} Conventions followed by publications and newspapers In the United States Publications based in the U.S. tend to follow the style guides of the Chicago Manual Of Style and the Associated Press . The U.S. Government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office . However, there is some inconsistency in abbreviation styles, as they are not rigorously defined by style guides. Some two-word abbreviations, like "United Nations", are abbreviated with uppercase letters and periods, and others, like "personal computer" (PC) and "compact disc" (CD), are not; rather, they are typically abbreviated without periods and in uppercase letters. A third variation is to use lowercase letters with periods; this is used by Time Magazine in abbreviating "public relations" (p.r.). Moreover, even three-word abbreviations (most U.S. publications use uppercase abbreviations without periods) are sometimes not consistently abbreviated, even within the same article. '' The New York Times '' is unique in having a consistent style by always abbreviating with periods: P.C., I.B.M., P.R. This is in contrast with the trend of British publications to completely make do without periods for convenience. In Britain Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:
Miscellaneous and general rules
MEASUREMENT The International System Of Units (SI) defines a set of base units, from which other "derived" units may be obtained. The abbreviations, or more accurately "symbols" (using Roman letters, or Greek in the case of Ohm ) for these units are also clearly defined together with a set of prefixes, themselves symbolised (abbreviated) with Roman letters (except only for micro, which uses the Greek letter ''µ''), denoting powers of ten. The system is internationally recognised. Periods are not used, except as described below. Unit symbols do not have plural forms. Units are written either in full, including the base units and their prefixes, or with all symbols. When a unit is written in full, it is written in all lower case. For example, ''megaampere'' for ''MA''. There should never be a period after or inside a unit; both '10 k.m.' and '10 k.m' are wrong — the only correct form is '10 km' (only followed with a period when at the end of a sentence). A period "within" a compound unit denotes multiplication of the base units on each side of it. Ideally, this period should be raised to the centre of the line, but often it is not. For instance, '5 ms' means 5 millisecond(s), whereas '5 m.s' means 5 metre·second(s). The "m.s" here is a compound unit formed from the product of two fundamental SI units — metre and second. There should always be a (non-breaking) space between the number and the unit — '25 km' is correct, and '25km' is incorrect. The Case Of Letters (uppercase or lowercase) has meaning in the SI system, and should never be changed in a misguided attempt to follow an abbreviation style. For example, "10 S" denotes 10 siemens (a unit of conductance), while "10 s" denotes 10 seconds. Any unit named after a person is denoted by a symbol with an upper case first letter (S, Pa, A, V, N, Wb, W), but spelt out in full in lower case, (siemens, pascal, ampere, volt, newton, weber and watt). By contrast g, l, m, s, cd, ha represent gramme, litre, metre, second, candela and hectare respectively. The one slight exception to this rule is that the symbol for litre is allowed to be L to help avoid confusion with an upper case ''i'' or a One in some Typeface s — compare l, I, and 1. Likewise, the abbreviations of the prefixes denoting powers of ten are case-sensitive: m (milli) represents a thousandth, but M (mega) represents a million, so by inadvertent changes of case one may introduce (in this example) an error of a factor of 1 000 000 000. When a unit is written in full, the whole unit is written in lowercase, including the prefix: millivolt for mV, nanometre for nm, gigacandela for Gcd. The above rules, if followed, ensure that the SI system is always unambiguous, so for instance mK denotes millikelvin, MK denotes megakelvin, K.m denotes kelvin.metre, and km denotes kilometre. Forms such as k.m and kms are ill-formed and technically meaningless in the SI system, although the meaning might be inferred from the context. HISTORY After World War II , the British greatly reduced their use of the full stop and other punctuations after abbreviations in at least semi-formal writing, while the Americans more readily kept its use until more recently, and still maintain it more than Britons. The classic example, considered by their American counterparts quite curious, was the maintenance of the internal comma in a British organization of secret agents called the "Special Operations, Executive" — "S.O.,E" — which is not found in histories written after about 1960. But before that, many Britons were more scrupulous at maintaining the French form. In linguistic acquisitions, many Britons readily took this up and followed this rule themselves, while the Americans took a simpler rule and applied it rigorously. 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. The U.S. media tend to abbreviate two-word abbreviations like United States (U.S.), but not personal computer (PC) or television (TV), which is a source of confusion. Many British publications have gradually done away with the use of periods in abbreviations completely. EXAMPLES
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