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Abbreviations
Abbreviations allow the construction of shorter sentences in 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, abbreviations and acronyms.
While abbreviations and symbols manage to reduce the space occupied by certain words 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 to shorten
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 suppression of the final part of the word, it is the most common method of constructing abbreviations. For example: chap. (short for "chapter")
- Syncopation. By suppression of some intermediate letters. For example: co. (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 the abbreviations
- At least two letters must be deleted from the abbreviated word to “save” at least two characters, since the space occupied by the point is always added.
- In a few cases abbreviations include characters that are not in the abbreviated word.
- Many words have more than one way to abbreviate.
- Each abbreviated element that represents a complete element must have its point.
- As the point always serves, at the same time, as a closure of a phrase or sentence, there should never be two points one after the other.
- If the abbreviation is made up 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 "es" at the end.
- Doubling of initials is also a relatively common method of abbreviating pluralized fixed names, typically the name of a political or administrative division, such as the 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 titles of persons, academic or professional titles and 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 complete word or expression.
| Atte. (attentively) | Inc. (company) |
| a/c (on account) | Col. _ (colonel) |
| Bco. (Bank) | BC (before Christ) |
| Bible (library) | Page (page) |
| Bmo. (Blessed) | Presb. and Pbro. (presbyter) |
| Bo. and Bº. (neighborhood) | Main. (principal) |
| Buenos Aires. (Buenos Aires) | Dept. (Department) |
| chap. (chapter) | Mrs.: Mrs. |
| cte (current account) | dr doctor |
| Cent. (penny) | Mr. (sir) |
