Abbreviation

“ From early times such curtailment was more freely employed in works written in technical language, such as works on law or grammar or mathematics, wherein particular words are more liable to repetition, than in MSS. of general literature. The oldest system of abbreviation is that in which a single letter (nearly always the initial letter) or at most two or three letters represent the whole word. This system we know was in common use among both Greek and Latin writers, and ancient inscriptions afford plentiful examples. ”

“ The same may be said of all the characters used for abbreviation; as, & for and, $ for dollars, or the marks peculiar to mathematicians, to astronomers, to druggists, &c. None of these are alphabetic, and they represent significant words, and not single elementary sounds: it would be great dullness, to assume that a word and an elementary sound are one and the same thing. ”

“ When abbreviations were employed only with the view of speed in writing, it is obvious that they would occur more frequently in the ephemeral documents of daily life than in carefully written literary works intended for the book-market. Abbreviation in Greek MSS. Hence they are not to be found in Greek papyri of the latter class. ”

“ ABBREVIATIONS
In General. Abbreviations as a rule are not acceptable in the text of a book, though they may be employed in tabulated statements, in lists of names, or in other places where it is desirable to save space. In technical matter and scientific works, abbreviations are of course desirable.
Forms of Address. The following abbreviations are to be used in all cases:—
Do not set the Rev., the Very Rev., the Right Rev., or the Hon., the Right Hon., except in quoted matter. ”

“ All legitimate words should be spelled out in full in text matter, but abbreviations are often needed in book work for footnotes and tables and in commercial work, where many brief forms and signs are used which are commonly understood and are as intelligible as words.
Certain special forms of printing such as market and stock reports, sporting news, price lists, directories, telephone directories, and the like make extensive use of abbreviations and signs. These abbreviations are of very limited use and often of only temporary life. ”

“ Do not separate abbreviations like a.m., e.g., i.e., a.d., M.D., Ph.D., Litt.D., etc.
In text matter where a number of subdivisions are made, as, (1) , (2) , (a) , (b) , etc., do not end a line with the divisional mark, but carry it over with the matter to which it belongs.
Time and Date. Abbreviate a.d. and b.c., a.m. and p.m., and set in small caps without space between letters. Where roman letters are used, in text or footnotes, to express dates, use small caps. ”

“ Hence p and ps admirably answered as abbreviations of any of these names. The symbols in Fig. 3 show that the usual abbreviation was a ps or p, the letter p taking sometimes a florescent form and the s in ps being as a rule raised above the p. The p and the s are often connected, showing that they were written in these instances by one uninterrupted motion of the pen. As seen in Fig. 3, the same manuscript sometimes shows symbols of widely different shapes. The capital P is a rare occurrence. ”

“ There are many other signs and abbreviations used in works on the various sciences. Approved modern text-books are the only safe guides to the proper use of these.
In printing dialect, slang, and colloquialisms the only general rule is to follow copy. ”

“ Johnson says, "A, an article set before nouns of the singular number; as, a man, a tree. This article has no plural signification. Before a word beginning with a vowel, it is written an; as, an ox, an egg; of which a is the contraction."--Quarto Dict., w. A.
OBS. 18.--Dr. Webster says, "A is also an abbreviation of the Saxon an or ane, one, used before words beginning with an articulation; as, a table, instead of an table, or one table. This is a modern change; for, in Saxon, an was used before articulations as well as vowels; as, an tid, a time, an gear, a year."--Webster's Octavo Dict., w. ”

“ The nature of the publication governs the extent to which abbreviations are used. In text of technical and legal publications, and in parentheses, brackets, footnotes, sidenotes, tables, leaderwork, and bibliographies, many words are frequently abbreviated. ”

“ Words and letters in square brackets have been supplied by the Editor. H. C. R.'s spelling and punctuation have been corrected, and his abbreviations, particularly of proper names, written in extenso wherever these alterations seemed to make the text clearer. ”

“ In almanacs, arithmetics, dictionaries, gazetteers, and technical books of like nature, abbreviations are not a fault but a positive merit where they save needed space. In treatises on botany, chemistry, or algebra and the higher mathematics, signs, symbols, and abbreviations are most helpful to the student. ”

“ Habit and convenience are to-day the principal motives for using abbreviations. Most of those in actual use fall under one or other of the following heads: I. Administrative; II. Liturgical; III. Scholastic; IV. Chronological.
I. The first class of Abbreviations includes those used in the composition of Pontifical documents. They were once very numerous, and lists of them may be seen in the works quoted below (e.g. Quantin, Prou) . ”

“ INDEX No effort is made in this index to refer to the complete details of treatment of the principal marks, for the treatment of such marks is almost continuous throughout the book. The table of contents will make up, in some measure, for this deficiency.
References are to pages.
Abbreviations and miscellany, 194. Accordingly, 96. Address, abbreviations in forms of, 169; forms of, in a letter, 194. Adjective in natural position, 10; two or more before a noun, 147. Adverb out of natural position takes a comma or commas, 10. Afterthought, 42. ”

“ In technical matter, after the recognized abbreviations for linguistic epochs. IE (Indo-European) , MHG (Middle High German)
[19] and after titles of well-known publications indicated by initials such as AAAPS (Annals of the American Academy of Political Science) .
When a parenthesis forms the end of a declarative sentence the period is placed outside the parenthesis, as in the preceding example. A period is placed inside a parenthesis only in two cases.
1. After an abbreviation.
This was 50 years ago (i.e. 1860 A.D.)
2. ”

“ Forbidden Abbreviations.—The following abbreviations may not be used on most newspapers:
1. Christian names: as, Chas. for Charles, Thos. for Thomas.
2. Mount, Fort, and Saint: as, Mt. St. Elias for Mount Saint Elias, Ft. Wayne for Fort Wayne.
3. Railroad, Company, Brothers, etc.: as, New Haven R. R. for New Haven Railroad, National Biscuit Co. for National Biscuit Company.
11. Numbers
95. Dates.—Observe the following rules concerning dates:
1. Write year dates always in figures: as, 1776.
2. Write month dates in figures when preceded by the name of the month: as, July 7, 1916. ”

“ Vol. 1 consists of succinct discussions of the development of the hands; forms of documents; languages used in English archives; the teaching and practice of handwriting in England; letter forms current in the fifteenth century; runes; abbreviations, ligatures, conjoined letters, and elisions; the letter forms of each of the hands; dating court hands; personal marks, paraphs, and signatures; symbols and ciphers; numerals; punctuation, accents, and the apostrophe; paragraph marks and other conventional divisions; alterations and corrections; decoration ”

“ III. Abbreviations now in use.—The import of these will often be readily understood from the connection in which they occur. There is no occasion to explain here the common abbreviations used for Christian names, books of Scripture, months of the year, points of the compass, grammatical and mathematical terms, or familiar titles, like “Mr,” &c.
The ordinary abbreviations, now or recently in use, may be conveniently classified under the following headings:—
1. ”

“ Use abbreviations and even initials for names of the most common places of publication.
Ex. Balt., Berl., Bost., Camb., Cin., Cop. or Copenh., Göt., L. (London) , Lisb., Lpz., Madr., N. O., N. Y., Oxf., P. (Paris) , Phila., St. P. (St. Petersburg) , Ven., Wash.; and use the ordinary abbreviations for state names. (A list is given in Appendix V.)
181. If there is more than one place of publication Short and Medium should give only one. ”

“ Christian names should always be spelled out, except where the abbreviated form is used in quoted matter, or in original signatures. Note that Alex, Ben, Ed, Fred, and Sam are not always abbreviations. Copy should always be followed as regards the period. In tabular or other matter, where abbreviations must be used, the following forms are preferred ”

“ III. In the third class belong scholastic Abbreviations, used to designate honorific titles acquired in the schools, to avoid the repetition of lengthy titles of books and reviews, or to facilitate reference to ecclesiastical and civil legislation. IV. In the fourth class of Abbreviations belong all such as are used to describe the elements of the year, civil or ecclesiastical. ”

“ The noun affixes may be distributed into nine classes, viz, the Nominative, the Objective, the Possessive, the Dative, the Causative, the Instrumentive, the Connective, the Locative, and the Ablative.
nominative.
§59. သည် is the most common nominative affix, denoting the agent or subject of the verb; as ထို​လူ​သည်​ကောင်း​၏, that man is good; but in simple sentences, it is most commonly omitted; as သူ​ကောင်း​သည်, he is good; also in participial clauses, ဆ​ရာ​ပြော​သော​စ​ကား the words which the teacher speaks. ”

“ It would seem that some, who ought to know better, are liable to mistake for the subject of such a verb, the noun which we put absolute in the nominative by direct address. Of this gross error, the following is an example: "Study boys. In this sentence," (says its author,) "study is a verb of the second person, plural number, and agrees with its nominative case, boys—according to the rule: A verb must agree with its nominative case in number and person. Boys is a noun of the second person, plural number, masculine gender, in the nominative case to the verb study."—Ingersoll's Gram., p. ”

“ Adjectives are of three kinds, pronominal, verbal, and numeral.
Adjectives of either kind are prefixed to their nouns, by means of the connective သည် or သော, if singular, and the same, or ကုန်​သည် or ကုန်​သော, if plural, or directly affixed. But to this general rule; there are several exceptions, particularly in the pronominals.
An adjective and noun, united in either way, form a compound word, which admits the plural affix, and the affixes of case, the same as a simple noun. ”

“ To parse a noun is to state the class to which it belongs, its gender, number, case, and its grammatical relation to other words in the sentence.
The changes in meaning and use which nouns undergo with or without a change in form, are called their inflections.
The inflections of the noun are number and case.
EXERCISE.
Parse all the nouns in the following sentences:—
Model.—John, a proper, concrete noun; masculine gender; singular number; nominative case, subject of lost.
Teacher’s, a common, concrete noun; masculine or feminine gender; singular number; possessive case, possessing book. ”

“ LESSON I.—NOUNS Nominative and Objective Case
First and Second Declension
VERBS
Three Persons Singular,
Present Indicative
A noun is the name of a thing or person, a verb signifies an action, an adjective a quality as good or bad belonging to a noun. The nominative case is the person who is or may be doing what the verb means; the objective case is the thing or person to which or towards which the action of the verb tends. The verb to be, denoting simple existence, not action, of course is followed by the nominative, not the objective case.
Nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. ”

“ These suffixes, divided into four categories, may be:—
1. Suffixes expressing number. 2. Suffixes„ expressing„ case. 3. Suffixes„ expressing„ person. 4. Suffixes„ expressing„ place and direction.
The Number of Nouns.
There are two numbers; a singular and a plural.
The plural is formed by adding -k to nouns ending with a, vowel; or -ak, -ok, -ek, -ök to nouns ending with a consonant. In forming the plural the following rules are to be observed:—
a and e at the end of a noun become lengthened in the plural; as fa (tree) , plural fák; eke (plough) , plural ekék. ”

“ The parts of which a compound sentence consists, are called Members or Clauses. In every compound sentence there are either several subjects and one attribute, or several attributes and one subject, or both several subjects and several attributes; that is, there are either several nominatives applied to the same verb, or several verbs applied to the same nominative, or both. Every verb marks a judgment or attribute, and every attribute must have a subject. There must, therefore, be in every sentence or period, as many propositions as there are verbs of a finite mode. ”

“ A prefix is a significant syllable or word placed before and joined with a word to modify its meaning: as, unsafe = not safe; remove = move back; circumnavigate = sail around.
17. A suffix is a significant syllable or syllables placed after and joined with a word to modify its meaning: as, safely = in a safe manner; movable = that may be moved; navigation = act of sailing.
The word affix signifies either a prefix or a suffix; and the verb to affix means to join a prefix or a suffix to a root-word. ”

“ There are certain headings which belong both to the Subject and the Form family. “Encyclopædias,” inasmuch as the books treat of all knowledge, is the most inclusive of all the subject-classes; inasmuch as (with few exceptions) they are in alphabetic form, it is a form-class.
Heading, the word by which the alphabetical place of an entry in the catalogue is determined, usually the name of the author, of the subject, or of the literary or practical form, or a word of the title. ”