Hello.
Are the expressions 9th inst. and 20th prox. archaic? Are the specific to some variant of English such as american English or Brtish English?
Thanks,
Manoj
Bangalore India
12°58' N, 77°39' E
http://www.geocities.com/kummini/
They certainly were used a lot in British business letters in the past.
We were told at school in the sixties not to use them, I suppose they have been relegated to "officialese" these days. I'm not sure if they were common in the USA or Australia.
I'd venture that they are not "common" in the US; I've never seen these usages and could only guess at what they signify.
http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
Intt would have been used, most commonly, as the first sentence of a letter.
Eg. Thank you for your letter of the 14th inst. (meaning last month).
Prox. usually refers to next month.
so prox. abbreviates
proximo and inst. is
instant... although MWC gives this sense of instant as "of the
current month".
http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
Yep, you're right again - it does mean the current month, I always did get that one wrong!
Yes, Jo, they were certainly in use down under, and let's not forget "ult" (ultimo) for the last month.
Thanks for ult. - I was thinking of Latin abbreviations and couldn't remember that one. I think we've got them all now. QED.
As a PS I can take Latin abbreviations PRN, although I take this site at least OD, often BD, sometime TDS and occasionally QID.
Philip
Signed pp Jan the Dog, general dogsbody &c.
>I take this site at least OD, often BD, sometime TDS and occasionally QID
And would you prescribe the same for others?
I'd Rx AWAD stat and then prn.