Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
It may be placed after an initial letter used to abbreviate a word. It is often placed after each individual letter in acronyms and initialisms (e.g. "U.S."). However, the use of full stops after letters in an initialism or acronym is declining, and many of these without punctuation have become accepted norms (e.g., "UK" and "NATO"). [b]
A period (a.k.a. full stop) is sometimes used to signify abbreviation, but opinion is divided as to when and if this convention is best practice. According to Hart's Rules, a word shortened by dropping letters from the end terminates with a period, whereas a word shorted by dropping letters from the middle does not.
The first letter of every word in such a name is capitalized (Alpha Centauri and not Alpha centauri; Milky Way, not Milky way). Words such as comet and galaxy should be capitalized when they form part of a proper name, but not when they are used as a generic term ( Halley's Comet is the most famous of the comets ; The Andromeda Galaxy is a ...
Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation. For some, an initialism [ 1 ] or alphabetism , connotes this general meaning, and an acronym is a subset with a narrower definition: an initialism pronounced as a word rather than as a sequence of letters.
The first letter(s) of the word to be abbreviated are followed by a period; then, the final letter(s) of the word are written as lowercase superscripts. This gives the abbreviations n. o (singular) and n. os (plural). The abbreviation "no." is not used (it might be mistaken for the Spanish negative word no). The abbreviations nro. and núm. are ...
A shortening is an abbreviation formed by removing at least the last letter of a word (e.g. etc. and rhino), and sometimes also containing letters not present in the full form (e.g. bike). As a general rule, use a full point after a shortening that only exists in writing (e.g. etc. ) but not for a shortening that is used in speech (e.g. rhino ).
AOL latest headlines, entertainment, sports, articles for business, health and world news.
Captions normally start with a capital letter. The text of captions should not be specially formatted (with italics, for example), except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text. Several discussions (e.g. this one ) have failed to reach a consensus on whether "stage directions" such as (right) or (behind podium) should be in ...