Abbreviations

Content

• Procedures for abbreviation
• Characteristics of abbreviations
• Examples of abbreviations

The abbreviations they allow the construction of shorter sentences in the written language and tend to avoid the repetition of terms. For example: P. (short for "page")

It is one of the procedures that the language has to shorten expressions, the others are the use of symbols, acronyms and acronyms.

While abbreviations and symbols manage to reduce the space that certain words occupy by shortening them or representing them in a way established by convention, respectively, acronyms and acronyms abbreviate phrases, that is, expressions made up of more than one word.

Procedures for abbreviation

Abbreviations can be recognized by the presence of a period after their last letter (known as an abbreviation period). There are three basic procedures to conform them:

• Apocope. By deleting the final part of the word, it is the most common method of constructing abbreviations. For example: chap. (short for "chapter")
• Syncopation. By deleting some intermediate letters. For example: Inc. (short for "company)
• Contraction. Only a few letters conventionally established as representative of that word are written. For example: Bs. As. (abbreviation for "Buenos Aires")

Characteristics of abbreviations

• At least two letters must be removed from the abbreviated word to "save" at least two characters, since the space occupied by the period is always added.
• In a few cases abbreviations include characters that are not in the abbreviated word.
• Many words have more than one way of being abbreviated.
• Each abbreviated element representing a complete element must carry its point.
• As the point always serves, at the same time, as a closing phrase or sentence, there should never be two points one after the other.
• If the abbreviation consists of several elements, the spaces between the original expression must be respected.
• Accents are always kept in abbreviations.
• The plural of abbreviations is constructed in the vast majority of cases by adding a letter "s" or "is" at the end.
• Duplication of initials is also a relatively common method of abbreviating pluralized fixed names, typically the name of a political or administrative division, such as US (for United States) or RR. H H. (by Human Resources). These were previously considered acronyms.
• Some abbreviations include flown letters and other bars, especially in administrative and legal fields.
• The abbreviations of treatment of persons, academic or professional titles and of religious dignities or military ranks are always written with a capital initial.

Examples of abbreviations

Some examples of abbreviations are given below, along with the entire word or expression.

Keep reading:

• 100 Examples of Abbreviations and their meaning