Re: punctuated abbreviations // was english spelling reform

Nik Taylor wrote:

>Adrian Morgan wrote:
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>>by and large "Mr" does not
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>Is this true everywhere?  I do write Mr. and Mrs., and never thought
>that was odd.  Of course, I haven't really been paying attention to
>whether or not other people do.
>
Err... no, that's actually how the discussion began... I pointed out
that 'No.' for 'number' was the only abbrev. that ended in the last
letter of the root word that had a fullstop at the end of it, and John
Cowan pointed out that, indeed, Americans tended still to put periods on
the ends of all abbrevs, regardless of how they were done. So, indeed,
Commonwealth practice is for 'Mr' and 'Mrs' (and 'Miss' and 'Ms') but
American practice is "Mr." and "Mrs." (and, presumably "Miss" and "Ms",
though I have seen "Ms."... I guess no vowel makes it look like an
abbreviation for something unwritable ('Miz'? 'Muz'? neither of which
end in an 's', so 'Ms' can't be an abbreviation anyway...)).

Tristan.

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