Editing Abbreviation (section)

== History ==
{{See also|Scribal abbreviation}}

In early times, abbreviations may have been common due to the effort involved in writing (many inscriptions were carved in stone) or to provide secrecy via [[obfuscation]].

Reduction of a word to a single letter was common in both [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] and [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] writing.<ref>{{cite book |first=Charles Frederick |last=Partington |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HA9kAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA5 |title=The British Cyclopaedia of the Arts, Sciences, History, Geography, Literature, Natural History, and Biography |publisher= Wm. S. Orr and Company |date=1838 |page=5 |oclc=	551503698}}</ref> In Roman inscriptions, "Words were commonly abbreviated by using the initial letter or letters of words, and most inscriptions have at least one abbreviation".<!-- cited next sentence --> However, "some could have more than one meaning, depending on their context. (For example, {{angbr|A}} can be an abbreviation for many words, such as ''{{lang|la|ager}}'', ''{{lang|la|amicus}}'', ''{{lang|la|annus}}'', ''{{lang|la|as}}'', ''{{lang|la|Aulus}}'', ''{{lang|la|Aurelius}}'', ''{{lang|la|aurum}}'', and ''{{lang|la|avus}}''.)"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adkins |first1=Lesley |last2=Adkins  |first2=Roy |title=Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome |series=Facts on file |isbn=9780816074822 |oclc=	882540013 | publisher=Infobase Publishing |date=2004  |page=261}}</ref> Many frequent abbreviations consisted of more than one letter: for example COS for ''consul'' and COSS for its [[nominative case|nominative]] etc. plural ''consules''.

Abbreviations were frequently used in early [[English language|English]]. Manuscripts of copies of the [[Old English]] poem ''[[Beowulf]]'' used many abbreviations, for example the [[Tironian et]] ({{char|⁊}}) or {{char|&}} for ''and'', and {{char|y}} for ''since'', so that "not much space is wasted".<ref>{{cite book |last=Gelderen |first=Elly van |title=A History of the English Language |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company |date=2014 |chapter=4 1. |isbn=9789027270436 |oclc=1097127034}}</ref> The standardisation of English in the 15th through 17th centuries included a growth in the use of such abbreviations.<ref name=spell>{{cite web |url=http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j7/shortcuts.php |title=The End of Short Cuts: The use of abbreviated English by the fellows of Merton College, Oxford 1483-1660. |first1=John M. |last1=Fletcher |first2=Christopher A. |last2=Upton |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 15, 2007 |website=The Simplified Spelling Society |date=1 February 2004
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015214606/http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j7/shortcuts.php }}</ref> At first, abbreviations were sometimes represented with various suspension signs, not only periods. For example, sequences like {{angbr|er}} were replaced with {{angbr|ɔ}}, as in {{char|mastɔ}} for ''master'' and {{char|exacɔbate}} for ''exacerbate''. While this may seem trivial, it was symptomatic of an attempt by people manually reproducing academic texts to reduce the copy time.
{{blockquote|Mastɔ subwardenɔ y ɔmēde me to you. And wherɔ y wrot to you the last wyke that y trouyde itt good to differrɔ thelectionɔ ovɔ to quīdenaɔ tinitatis y have be thougħt me synɔ that itt woll be thenɔ a bowte mydsomɔ.|source= Warden of [[Merton College]], [[University of Oxford]] in {{lang|la|Registrum Annalium Collegii Mertonensis}}, 1503.<ref name=spell />}}

In the [[Early Modern English]] period, between the 15th and 17th centuries, the [[thorn (letter)|thorn]] {{char|Þ}} was used for ''th'', as in {{char|Þ<sup>e</sup>}} ('the'). In modern times, {{angbr|Þ}} was often used (in the form {{angbr|y}}) for promotional reasons, as in {{char|Y<sup>e</sup> Olde Tea Shoppe}}.<ref>Lass, R., ''The Cambridge History of the English Language'', Cambridge University Press, 2006, Vol. 2, p. 36.</ref>

During the growth of [[philology|philological]] linguistic theory in academic Britain, abbreviating became very fashionable. Likewise, a century earlier in [[Boston]], a fad of abbreviation started that swept the United States, with the globally popular term [[Okay|OK]] generally credited as a remnant of its influence.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.illinoisprairie.info/chocokeh.htm |title=The Choctaw Expression 'Okeh' and the Americanism 'Okay' |publisher=Jim Fay |date=2007-09-13 |access-date=2008-05-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101224185657/http://www.illinoisprairie.info/chocokeh.htm |archive-date=2010-12-24 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250.html |title=What does "OK" stand for? |work=[[The Straight Dope]] |access-date=2008-05-12| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080512085453/http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250.html| archive-date= 12 May 2008 | url-status= live}}</ref>

Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. This question is considered below.

Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones and the Internet during the 1990s led to a marked rise in colloquial abbreviation. This was due largely to increasing popularity of textual communication services such as instant and text messaging. The original [[Short Message Service|SMS]] supported message lengths of 160 characters at most (using the [[GSM 03.38]] character set), for instance.{{efn|Modern text messaging is not affected by this issue although, behind the scenes, longer messages are carried in multiple 160-byte short messages in a chain. Characters not in GSM 03.38 require two bytes.}} This brevity gave rise to an informal abbreviation scheme sometimes called [[SMS language|Textese]], with which 10% or more of the words in a typical SMS message are abbreviated.<ref>Crystal, David. [[Txtng: the Gr8 Db8]]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-19-954490-5}}</ref> More recently Twitter, a popular [[social networking service]], began driving abbreviation use with 140 character message limits.

In [[HTML]], abbreviations can be annotated using <syntaxhighlight lang=html inline=true><abbr title="Meaning of the abbreviation.">abbreviation</abbr></syntaxhighlight> to reveal its meaning by [[mouseover|hovering the cursor]].