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#92773 01/21/03 09:43 PM
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and here I thought dr was the derivative position vector.

As the nerds in Bart Simpson's gifted class said, "r dr r."

k



#92774 01/21/03 11:25 PM
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So, what are commas, colons, and semi-colons in UK?

demiquavers, quavers and semidemiquavers, natürlich.

preëmptive strike: this is not in the right order, logically, but it sounds better this way. Get a life.... :-|


#92775 01/21/03 11:25 PM
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I thought the rule was simple: that if the abbreviation is formed by the elision of letters within the word, there is no ".": if it's formed by missing letters off the end, then you do use a "." (Just don'task what happens if you do both.)
jj


#92776 01/22/03 01:34 AM
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I have never before heard of such a rule. It appears to be more honored in the breach than in the
observance. Even on those occasions when I have seen "Mr" or "Mrs" without the "." it appeared to
be an error. I think the use of the "." is desirable after all abbreviations.

From my dictionary: note that abbreviation for "cotangent" does not require a "."
abbreviation
n.

1 a making shorter
2 the fact or state of being made shorter
3 a shortened form of a word or phrase, as N.Y. for New York, Mr. for Mister, lb. for pound, ctn for cotangent



#92777 01/22/03 11:05 AM
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more honored in the breach

Or in Britlands


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Several transpondian references to deal with here:

1)
dr (debtor), Dr (Doctor), with or without a "."
The rule of which Dr Bill has not heard used to be quite firmly the case over here, but is not so any more. We use either form - with or without "." - and no-one comments; not even if one isn't consistent. However, words that have had bits lopped off to form the abbrev. should have the "."

B)
What do we call "."?
Full stop - whether it is at the end of a sentence or after an abbrev. There is no particular justification for this - it's just the way most of us do it. Some people have started to call it "period" but that ain't too common, yet.

Ş) comma, semi-colon, colon
comma, semi-colon, colon

But "!" is almost always called "exclamation mark"
and "?" is a "question mark".

I think that's all for now!



#92779 01/22/03 01:55 PM
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>Brits and some others

well, i was asking about it because poles are "some others" :P


#92780 01/22/03 02:03 PM
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I think the use of the "." is desirable after all abbreviations.

A lot of people seem to think that Ms is an abbreviation, and put a stop after it.


#92781 01/22/03 02:10 PM
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#92782 01/22/03 02:55 PM
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ctn for cotangent

Typo, dr bill? I've never seen anything but cot for cotangent.


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