Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations/Archive 1

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Definite articles before acronyms of proper nouns

Should a definite article be used before an acronym or initialism of whose expansion is used with a definite article, such as proper nouns? For example, is it correct to write "He went to USA", or only "He went to the USA"? Which should be preferred? -Pgan002 08:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that both options are unusual. More common would be "He went to the U.S." USA is rarely used. HistoryBA 21:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

As to the 'the' - I'd say, use it. Only one writer (a Scot) that I edit uses, for example, 'weather in UK' as opposed to 'weather in the UK'. (On the U.S. v. USA issue, at least using USA can avoid a double stop at the end of a sentence, avoiding U.S.. --Tony in Devon 12:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

At the end of a sentence consider using "United States". Rich Farmbrough, 17:35 18 November 2006 (GMT).

FWIW dept. -- From the ChiMoS on-line: "6.122 No double period. When an expression that takes a period ends a sentence, no additional period follows." So, by all means, "U.S." can end a sentence. ;-) RCEberwein | Talk 20:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Concur. If one were using the (quasi-deprecated) "U.S." instead of "US", the period at the end of "U.S." would merge with the sentence-ending dot. The only case I know of where we conscion double periods is if the first of them is inside a parenthetical, that is enclosed in actual parenthesis as oppposed to several other treatments of parentheticals (and I personally dispute even that, notwithstanding that I acknowledge that CMoS recommends it, because it is redundant and logically conflicts with this not being done in any other construct, including structurally identical quotation situations; see previous discussion, qqv.). ⇐ I've just rather too contrivedly done it in previous sentence and I think it looks ridiculous, but oh well. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

See [1] for the best general explanation I've seen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.141.68.2 (talk • contribs) 16:16, 19 March 2007

Anyone looked at this yet? I am totally out of time tonight to do so. Must sleep... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, no double periods is well established. "USA" is obsolescent; we still have the memorable title "USA Today", but let's not use it otherwise. The deictic the is required unless US is used as an adjective, in which case it may be OK to use it in some circumstances ("As expected, the US Department of Agriculture was represented by ...", but "US President Hilary Clinton signed the nation up to the World Court and Kyoto"). Tony (talk) 07:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

MoS proper already deprecates "USA" and "U.S.A." unless quoted. The "the" point can't be generalized for all acronyms; many organizations officially prefer "the" while others do the opposite. E.g., the ACLU, but just NASA. "The" is almost always required with country acronyms, but I think that UAE may be a conventional exception. Cf. also just plain ASEAN versus the UN, when it comes to supranational entities. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Other Abbreviations

Would anyone object if I added a few other abbreviations to the list? I am thinking of LL.B. (or should it be LLB?), P.C. (PC?), M.A. (MA?), Ph.D. (PhD?), and others that are abbreviated in different ways on different articles. HistoryBA 21:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

U.S. & UK

Resolved

 – Moot; WP:MOS already addresses this.

I note that this list has a recommended format for the abbreviation for United States (U.S.), but not for United Kingdom.

The article American and British English differences consistently uses "U.S." (with stops) but "UK" (without stops). Why? In my personal view, either form (with & without stops) is acceptable, but I would have expected consistency with both abbreviations in the same format within a single article.

Certainly the abbreviation UK (without stops) is commonly used within the United Kingdom, but so is the abbreviation US (without stops)! Either UK or U.K. is (in my view) acceptable on its own; but it seems to me odd to use one form for one abbreviation and a different form for another very similar abbreviation in the same article.

Is there a policy or guideline on this?

TrevorD 18:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Trevor, welcome to WP and thanks for your contributions! Well... UK is very common in the UK, while U.S. is the usual form in the U.S. So the MoS (M.o.S.) came up with this (a tad cumbersome, indeed) tradeoff, U.S. (US) vs. y'all. Go figure...--JackLumber 20:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

There is another important consideration here. People searching for articles that mention the U.S. don't want to go to the word "us." For that reason, Wikipedia prefers "U.S." to "US," regardless of national preferences. HistoryBA 20:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You're dreadful right. U.S. vs. US / US vs. THEM. Yet this doesn't explain the U.S./UK dualism---why not U.K. then?... JackLumber 20:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a valid point; no such search, regardless of spelling, could produce useful results. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the above comments and altho' "UK is very common in the UK", so is U.K.. I'm happy to accept U.S. (even tho' it's twice as much to type!), and I'm fine with either UK or U.K. when it stands alone - but to mix U.S. and UK in the same article bugs me and offends my sense of style! As neither UK nor U.K. is listed in the list of abbreviations, are we allowed to use either form? If so, I would be inclined to change the 'offending' article to use U.K.. TrevorD 23:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"US" is very common in the "U.S.", too. In my mind this rule should be more contextually flexible. "Today, the U.S. government announced" is correct, but "ships of the US Navy" would be correct too. List headings should be consistent, thus "US" and "UK" if side-by-side (who wants extra clutter in a table?). Particularly in certain articles, where typing "U.S. Senate" vs. "US Senate" a dozen times grows tedious, I prefer the less cluttered version, and having the style guide declare it's incorrect gives people an excuse to, well, clutter things up unnecessarily. --Dhartung | Talk 03:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Advice from WP:MoS is When abbreviating United States, please use "U.S."; that is the more common style in that country. When referring to the United States in a long abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods should not be used. When including the United States in a list of countries, do not abbreviate the "United States" (for example, "France and the United States", not "France and the U.S."). You can find detailed discussions on the talk page archive. Rich Farmbrough 09:12 6 August 2006 (GMT).

WP:MOS no longer says this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:NCA varies from WP:MoS: "US" is used in article names, while "U.S." should be used in article text. Perhaps WP:MoS should note the distinction? I know it caught me off-guard. -- JHunterJ 21:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:MOS does not, and would not, because it is inconsistent. WP:NCA needs to be changed on this point, and should not actually be saying anything at all about what goes in article text, since that is not the purpose of the document. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

• Although you dot es dot is still favoured by many Americans, I'm afraid that outside North America, it's more usual to see "US", except in upper-case text. Many American WPians write and accept as readers the undotted version; I suppose that they're so used to seeing undotted initialisms that it looks just fine to them. I do not think that the you dot es dot should be prescribed, and "US" proscribed, as appears to be the case here in the non-appearance of "US" as an option. I suggest that both be explicitly cited. We've just had someone trawling through MOS and MOSNUM putting lots of ugly dots in. We don't need that.

A second, perhaps related point is that WP's MOS certainly does not "defer to other style manuals (e.g., Chicago). Just what kind of whimpish document is this? Chicago is for hard copy; WP's text has its own particular mode, audience and purposes. I intend to remove that phrase in the next few days. TONY (talk) 07:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Bachelor of Science

This list apparently mandates use of the abbreviation B.S. for Bachelor of Science. The standard UK abbreviation for Bachelor of Science is B.Sc. or BSc, and I think many brits would not understand B.S. as meaning Bachelor of Science, especially as it can mean Bachelor of Surgery, British Standard or Building Society. I would propose that the abbreviation used should be that appripriate to the institution that granted the Bachelor of Science degree (e.g. B.S. from an American institution, and B.Sc. from a British one), without prescribing a standard fixed abbreviation which may be unclear or ambiguous to other readers. For general reference to the degree, the full expression could be used. TrevorD 18:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I note that the alternatives have now been added. Thanks. TrevorD 20:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

AD & B.C.

Unresolved

 – Conflict between two MoS sections remains unresolved.

This list permits either A.D. or AD for anno Domini, but prescribes B.C. (with stops) for Before Christ. If either format of the former is allowed, surely either format B.C. or BC should also be allowed, provided, of course, that there is consistency within a single article. TrevorD 18:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I note that the alternatives have now been added. Thanks. TrevorD 20:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The option of using periods or not here conflicts with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras, which prescribes no periods. Also, should this list add BCE and CE? Finell (Talk) 07:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

M.D. - Doctor of Medicine

Just a note to point out that in the UK, M.D. is also commonly used to mean Managing Director of a company (similar to CEO or President), so preferably any usage of this abbreviation should not be ambiguous. TrevorD 20:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Rel.

I don't think the final note in the article on the abbreviation "Rel." is clear. Could someone please try to reword it? I would, but I'm not sure what it is trying to say. HistoryBA 14:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

AKA

I have been observing an increase in the use of the abbreviation aka (also known as). I personally dislike this abbrevition and I do not believe it is encyclopadic. However, I would like to know what do you all think, should it be used, and if not, what alternative shall we use? --Francisco Valverde 15:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it isn't encyclopedic. HistoryBA 14:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

And yet "a.k.a." is in the list of examples for the following Chicago manual of style (online) rule:

15.4 Periods: general guidelines

To avoid unnecessary periods in abbreviations, Chicago recommends the following general guidelines: use periods with abbreviations that appear in lowercase letters; use no periods with abbreviations that appear in full capitals or small capitals, whether two letters or more. For feasible exceptions, see 15.5. For a mixture of lowercase and capital letters, see 15.6. For the omission of periods in scientific usage, see 15.55, 15.58.

Note that Merriam-Webster Online now considers aka (no periods/stops, all lowercase) as the correct spelling, and has for at least the past year. It doesn't even list the common alternatives (a.k.a., A.K.A., AKA). The same is currently true of Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, although I hadn't noticed how long this has been true. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

MoS is not bound by what any particular offline style guides say; we take it into consideration, but no more. I think that consensus will simply emerge that regardless of spelling it is too informal for encyclopedic use, with exception of second, third, etc., occurrences (e.g. a list of gangsters and their aliases). Beyond that, my personal take would be "use the dots", because it eliminates any question in the mind of anyone (such as non-native English speakers) whether or not it is an acronym or a word. Regardless what consensus emerges, it should be noted in the guideline (see proposal below for expanding this document to include such notes). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, SMcCandlish, on a.k.a. being the preferred form, for the reasons you indicated. Examples found on the Web, including Merriam-Webster, carry little weight. Web editors (including, sadly, many who contribute to Wikipedia) are notoriously incompetent in matters of style, grammar and spelling, and seem to be fond of Newspeak. We should refer to reputable print sources for guidance, such as the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual.[2] —Quicksilver^{T @} 01:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

@ and &

Would these count as abreviations of at and and respectively?Cameron Nedland 03:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

No. They are symbols. Finell (Talk) 07:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry.Cameron Nedland 20:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

No need to apologize for asking questions! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

US postal abbreviations

It seems to me that the use in articles of US postal abbreviations (IL for Illinois, NY for New York, CA for California, etc.) should be discouraged (read: removed on sight) except, of course, when discussing the abbreviations themselves. (While I can't find it explicitly stated, I'm fairly certain that the article pages for US cities do not use the postal abbreviations.) For example, in article text, one should say "...in Houston, Texas...", not "...in Houston, TX..." (linking is a separate, but related question). Any comments? –RHolton≡– 18:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree and I change them to the full state name whenever I see them (barring contextual exceptions). Soltras 06:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, too. Please spell in full. As a non-U.S. reader, I always have to look up MI, MN, MO & MT for instance, to check my memory (and get correct in a magazine).--Tony in Devon 10:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I've put in a section - things to avoid - containing only this example. In principle it should not be a problem because of the MoS rule saying "introduce abbreviations". Rich Farmbrough, 17:44 18 November 2006 (GMT).

Sorry, Rich, I changed your wording to "postal code" before seeing this entry. But I think it's the outcome you intended all along? GMTA -- RCEberwein | Talk 21:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Fine, actually I found the same rule somewhere else in the MoS, just can't remember where. Place names, perhaps. Rich Farmbrough, 16:30 29 November 2006 (GMT).

I disagree with the style of spelling out a state. It reads easier if abbreviations are used. And, at the very least, if you're going to spell out a state name, enclose it with commas. As a writer, it looks a lot better. --Write_On_1983 talk | contribs 18:47, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been using the abbreviations in infoboxes when the full state (and province) names are already given. See for example the infobox at Okanogan River. It seems to me the abbreviations are self-explanatory given the previous mention of the states/provinces, and in an infobox it would be cluttery to spell it out, but useful to indicate where a particular city is, no? In any case, they are linked to the actual articles, which make it totally clear. Pfly 19:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

This is actually very debateable (and I hereby dispute it). The rules for usage should be the same as for "UK", "US", etc.: Give the full name followed by the acronym at first instance, then it is okay to use the acronym. With regard to US states, these abbreviations are not considered simply postal, but a general standard, and they are used across the board. It is a major redundancy avoidance tool - how many times must an article about a Massachusetts or Connecticut or New Hampshire topic spell those names out? I also have to observe that it is de facto standard actual practice in articles already. E.g. an article might be about someone from New Mexico and mention that she was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later that she lived in Santa Fe, NM, and Clovis, NM. MoS is more prescriptive that most guidelines, but it shouldn't be excessively so, especially with regard to already-accepted practice that is not problematic (I would counter-contend that MoS must be proscriptive if a "lazy" or "sloppy" but common editing pattern results in ambiguities or other problems; thus the MoS positions on quotation mark concerns.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:15, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I concur with RHolton, except that what he calls "abbreviations" aren't abbreviations at all: They are postal codes. Such codes are used in Canada, Mexico and other places, and many of them are hardly mnemonic. Use of codes in prose is bad form and any such usage needs to be removed on sight. The only place where they can't be removed is when they are a part of a URL and would, therefore, break the hyperlink. —Quicksilver^{T @} 02:34, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely about the inappropriateness of postal abbreviations in general articles, and unfortunately their use is endemic in Wikipedia. I delete them whenever I see them, but it feels as though I'm scooping water out of an ocean. Any chance a bot could help out with this situation? Moncrief (talk) 20:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Reading more carefully the comments above, I want to say this: postal abbreviations are indeed codes for the U.S. Postal Service, not "abbreviations" in the usual sense of the term. Their widespread adoption in informal writing in the United States does not mean they're appropriate for Wikipedia, not least because of the reason given by Tony in Devon above (however common these postal codes have become in the U.S., they're much less known, and hardly intuitive, outside of the U.S.) As far as how to abbreviate a state name, I see little need to do so. Use the state name on the first reference of a U.S. city (at least when the state is not already obvious), and then there generally is little need to re-state the state name later in the article. In cases where it's been a long way since the first state reference in an article, and it seems clarity dictates another mention of the state name, I don't see how it's inappropriate for articles in an encyclopedia to spell out a state name one or two more times in a long article.

One more thing: the Associated Press (AP) and other written media don't use postal codes. When they abbreviate a state name, they use the much more intuitive pre-two-letter-postal-code abbreviations ("Minn." for Minnesota, "Mich." for Michigan). I'm not saying we adopt that AP approach here, but I am disputing the universality of postal codes as a substitution for a state's name.

The bottom line: postal codes are not widely known outside the U.S. and were not designed to be brought into general usage. While they are increasingly common in informal writing in the U.S., that doesn't mean they're the right option for an encyclopedia, which is what Wikipedia is. Moncrief (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

e.g. and i.e. and brackets

1. e.g. certainly needs to be in the list, so I will add, with a translation. 2. I'll add a translation of i.e. as well, as so many people confuse these two. 3. QUESTION - as a copy editor (non-Wiki) I hate to see 'e.g. xxx' in brackets - a comma followed by the i.e. or e.g. is sufficient to provide the break. And if the sentence continues after the example? Well, probably better to start another sentence or use a hyphen. Opinions? Or have I missed advice already available in a guide? --Tony in Devon 10:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

In formal US usage in print, e.g. and i.e. are considered parenthetical expressions as are whatever follows them, so both should be set off by commas before and after. Example:

Use of pairs of complementary colors, e.g., red and green, is an important compositional element in painting.

It looks like a lot of commas, but it is correct. Finell (Talk) 07:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The comma between "e.g." and the examples is optional, as it would be spelled out: "for example red and green"; most editors prefer a comma here, including me, but we are not mandating anything about semantic use of commas in general prose in MoS anywhere that I'm aware of, and probably should not do so here. Commas are addressed by MoS for rather specialized usages (e.g. "1,000,000" vs. the continental European style "1.000.000", at WP:MOSNUM), but that's a different matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:51, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

"e.g." and "i.e." should never appear in brackets [ ] or braces { }; either set off by a comma or enclosed in parentheses. —Quicksilver^{T @} 02:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)