 | Disambiguation | |||
| ||||
St. vs. St edit
St. is not the abbreviation for saint.
This error is commonly made where people are unaware of the difference between an abbreviation (flagged by the full stop which signifies the missing letters) and a contraction (no full stop).
Consequently, stone (weight) is abbreviated to st. as follows:
stone >> st(one) >> st.
...and saint is contracted to st as follows:
saint >> s(ain)t >> st
Hence:
Mr A. Smith
Mr is the contracted form of the title Mister and A. is the abbreviated form of his first name.
- Nicely explained. Your point is corroborated in the Abbreviations article; I have corrected the text accordingly. Ayla 16:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
- I agree with the anonymous who claims that "St" for "S(ain)t" has to be written without full stop, but... According to the same rule, "vs" for "v(ersu)s" in the title of this talk should be written without full stop too! ;-) --Daniele Gallesio 14:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
- To be fair, it was me who added the section title. Now that you're mentioning it, it does appear absurd for "versus" to be abbreviated that way. However, the trend seems to be in favour of writing "vs." with the period (check out the vs article and dictionary.com). I am not sure why this is so; however, the reason might be one of the following:
- The rule is only an approximation, or "vs." is an exception
- The term is predominantly used in American English, where periods are practically always added
- The period is added for conformance with the alternate "v." abbreviation of the same word
- Ayla 18:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
- To be fair, it was me who added the section title. Now that you're mentioning it, it does appear absurd for "versus" to be abbreviated that way. However, the trend seems to be in favour of writing "vs." with the period (check out the vs article and dictionary.com). I am not sure why this is so; however, the reason might be one of the following:
21st century edit
21St (it means / twenty first ) 27.109.114.57 (talk) 14:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)