Common English Errors with Abbreviations

Today’s English
August 19th, 2017

Abbreviations are compact, convenient and timesavers but many learners and users of English are often confused how to read and write them, especially where to use capital letters, whether to read as a word or spell letter by letter and whether to use apostrophe or not. It’s time to clear off all such clouds.

There are four kinds of abbreviations in English – acronyms, contractions, shortenings and initialisms.

Acronyms and the errors:
If you form a word from the initial letter of two or more words, this abbreviation is known as acronym. You should read acronym as a word, not as separate letters. The whole acronym can be in capital letters or only the first letter.  If the acronym has now become a common word, you can write it completely in small letters.
1.NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (Read as a word NASA, not as separate letters N…A….S….A. )
2.Aids or AIDS – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Read as a word. You can use all capital letters or only the first letter as done here)
3.laser – light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation (the whole acronym is now written in small letters since it has become a common word.)

Initialisms and the errors
Like acronym, initialism is also an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of two or more words but the main difference is that an acronym is read as a word (AIDS) but an initialism is not read as a word but letter by letter (BBC).  Initialisms are mostly written in capital letters without full stops in British English, with full stops sometimes in American English.  Indians generally follow British English. 
1.DOB – Date of birth (Read letter by letter, not as a word. Don’t use full stop in between.)
2.DVD – Digital Versatile Disc or Digital video disc .
3.DVDs versus DVD's  (The first one is plural of DVD but the second one is possessive form - DVD's storage capacity is 4.7GB.)

Shortenings and errors
Shortening is an abbreviation in which the beginning or the end or sometimes both the beginning and end of a single word is dropped.  It is read as a word and written in small letters. Full stop is used at the end while shortening days, months and other non-English terms.
1.veg – a shortening of vegetables (end is dropped)
2.veggie – a shortening of vegetarian (end is dropped)
3.blog – a shortening of weblog (the beginning is left out)
4.fridge– a shortening of refrigerator (both the beginning and end are dropped)
5.Tue. Nov. etc.= Tuesday, November,  et cetera (don’t omit full stop after this type of shortening)

Contractions and the errors
Contraction is an abbreviation in which a letter or some letters in the middle of a word are omitted. Sometimes contractions are done in more than one word and an apostrophe is used then. (do not = don't)

1.Dr – contraction of Doctor (Don’t use full stop in British English. Dr Devarajan, Dr Senthil Kumar, etc. If you use a full stop, it’s American English.  The meaning of full stop in Latin is “the following letters are omitted.” When you say “Prof.” you can use full stop because “following letters -essor are omitted.  Oxford dictionary and Cambridge dictionary avoid use of full stop in Mr, Dr, Er, etc.)

2.Prof. – contraction of the title Professor (use full stop, Prof. Patel)

3.I’ll – contraction of I will (use apostrophe to mark the omission of “wi”)

4.won’t – contraction of will not

Relax!
(Manager : Being my PA, know the pros and cons and the dos and don’ts.  If you don’t, I can’t, then you won’t.  Haven’t you? For everything, I couldn’t. It’s yours, isn’t it?

PA : …………….???!)