ng dates as before or after the birth of Christ: According to tradition, Rome was founded in 753 bc The emperor Vespasian died in a.d. 79. or The emperor Vespasian died in 79 a.d. It is traditional, and recommended, to write a.d. before the date, but nowadays it is often written after. Non-Christians who do not use the Christian calendar may prefer to use bce (`before the common era ) and c.e. (`of the common era ) instead. This is always acceptable: According to tradition, Rome was founded in 753 bce The emperor Vespasian died in 79 ce All four of these abbreviations are commonly written in small capitals, and you should follow this practice if you can; if you can t produce small capitals, use full-sized capitals instead. All four of them are also now very frequently written without full stops: 753 bc, ad 79, 753 bce, 79 ce. This reflects the increasing tendency to omit the full stops in abbreviations. Note also that, when an abbreviation comes at the end of a sentence, only one full stop is written. You should never write two full stops in a row. The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group. They are found not only among formal words but also among colloquialisms and slang. [8] Many large and well-known organizations and companies have very long names which are commonly abbreviated to a set of initials written in capital letters, usually with no full stops. Here are a few familiar examples: BBC -British Broadcasting Corporation ICI -Imperial Chemical Industries FBI -Federal Bureau of Investigation RSPCA -Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals NATO -North Atlantic Treaty Organization MIT -Massachusetts Institute of Technology TUC -Trades Union Congress These and some others are so famous that you can safely use the abbreviated forms without explanation. But don t overdo it, not every reader will recognize IRO as the International Refugee Organization, or IOOF as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (an American social and charitable organization). And, if you re writing for a non-British readership, you d better not use the abbreviated forms of specifically British institutions, such as the TUC, without explaining them. If you are in doubt, explain the abbreviation the first time you use it. (Note that a few of these were formerly written with full stops, such as RSPCA, but this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete). A few other abbreviations are so well known that you can use them safely in your writing. Every reader will understand what you mean by GCSE examinations (GCSE=General Certificate of Secondary Education), or by DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), or by IQ (intelligence quotient), or by FM radio (FM=frequency modulation). Indeed, in some of these cases, the abbreviated form of the name is far more familiar than the full name. Otherwise, however, you should try to avoid the use of abbreviations in your formal writing. The frequent use of unnecessary abbreviations will make your text irritating and hard to read. So, you should write four ounces (not 4 oz.), 80 miles per hour (not 80 mph), the Church of England (not the C of E), the seventeenth century (not C17 or the 17th cent.) And the second volume (not the 2nd vol.) It is far more important to make your writing easy to read than to save a few seconds in writing it. There is one exception to this policy. In scientific writing, the names of units are always abbreviated and always written without full stops or a plural s. If you are doing scientific writing, then, you should conform by writing 5 kg (not 5 kilogrammes, and certainly not 5 kg. Or 5 kgs.), 800 Hz (not 800 Hertz) and 17.3 cm3 (not 17.3 cubic centimetres). There are a number of Latin abbreviations which are sometimes used in English texts. Here are the commonest ones with their English equivalents: eg for example cf. compare i.e. in other words v. consultviz. namely etc. and so forth sc. which means et al. and other people ca. Approximately [9] The rule about using these Latin abbreviations is very simple: don t use them. Their use is only appropriate in special circumstances in which brevity is at a premium, such as in footnotes. It is very poor style to spatter your page with these things, and it could be disastrous to use them without being quite sure what they mean. If you do use one, make sure you punctuate it correctly. Here is an example. The recommended form is this: Several British universities were founded in the Victorian era; for example, the University of Manchester was established in 1851. The following version is not wrong, but it is poor style: British universities were founded in the Victorian era; eg, the University of Manchester was established in 1851.But this next version is disastrously wrong, because the punctuation has been omitted: British universities were founded in the Victorian era eg the University of Manchester was estab...
