×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

to dot or not to dot

to dot or not to dot

to dot or not to dot

(OP)
You PEs seem to be unable to decide to dot or not to dot.  So which is it?

PE

or

P.E.

RE: to dot or not to dot

Preferred practice for using full stops in abbreviations varies. My personal preference is as follows:

a) Full stops are generally used at the end of abbreviations (i.e. where the last letter of the abbreviated word is one of the omitted letters) - e.g. B.Sc. for Bachelor of Science.

b) Full stops are generally NOT used in contractions (i.e. where the last letter of the contracted word is still shown) - e.g. St for Street or Saint, Rd for Road. (Does "St." imply that you have omitted the "reet" from "Street", whereas "St" implies you have omitted the "tree"?)

c) Full stops should not be used in acronyms, when the contraction is pronounced as a single word - e.g. NATO. In some cases, the acronym becomes so generic, that it is no longer even spelt out in capitals - e.g. Qantas, Anzac. In other cases, even the initial letter is no longer capitalised - e.g. laser, radar.

d) Full stops are optional when the abbreviation is common, and will be recognised in context with or without the full stops - e.g. Mr, PE, BBC, etc.

e) Full stops should be used whenever necessary to avoid ambiguity - for example, when the abbreviation could be confused for a different unabbreviated word in the context. (It's a useful rule, but I can't think of any examples at the moment.)

As I say, practice varies. For example, I would prefer to use B.Sc. as indicated in a) above, but others will argue for BSc, because it is a common and easily recognised abbreviation, as in d) above.

The main thing is to use a consistent style throughout any piece of writing, and preferably, across all of your writing.

RE: to dot or not to dot

I think you mean 'period', instead of full stop.  A full stop can be a period, question mark, or an exclamation point.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: to dot or not to dot

Not in the UK, a full stop is exactly that a full stop, a question mark is a question mark and so on. A period has no meaning as a grammatical term, although most are aware it is what Americans call a full stop.

RE: to dot or not to dot

JulianHardy's advice works for the UK.  In the US (or U.S.), whether or not periods are used after each of a series of initials (like PE or US) is largely optional, but other abbreviations always get a period, regardless of how common they are or whether they're formed from the beginning & end of a word.  One common exception:  unit abbreviations (ft, yd) often have the period left off, though even in those cases "in." will often keep its period to contrast with the preposition "in".

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: to dot or not to dot

CajunCenturion,

As ajack1 said, in regular British English (and by adoption, in Australia also - I can't speak with any authority for other regions), the "dot" punctuation mark is called a "full stop" when it is used to mark the end of a sentence, AND when it is used to denote an abbreviation, AND when it is used between units of money ($15.37), AND when it separates hours and minutes (10.30 a.m.). Technically, these are all "full stops". (The full stop in numerical applications is more commonly called a "point", but technically, it is still  "full stop".)

The question mark and exclamation mark are NOT called "full stops" in Britain or Australia - but common usage in America may well be different.

While we also understand the American term "period" for the specific use of a full stop at the end of a sentence, the term "period" is not yet commonly used in this sense  in Britain or Australia. (Although the all-pervasive nature of the Microsoft Word spell-checker, American film and TV, and so on, may well see that change in the not-too-distant future!).

RE: to dot or not to dot

Thank you JulianHardy for the explanation.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: to dot or not to dot

You see that is the problem with most of North America.  

To us "full stop" means pulling up to the stop sign and slowing down to a speed of approximately 10km/h.  Check to make sure you are not going to get hit, then pull through the intersection.

RE: to dot or not to dot

CanEngJohn,

So - if you don't come to a full stop at a Stop sign, and you drive on through and have a collision, you are likely to be found to be the guilty party - period?

RE: to dot or not to dot

The punctuation rules taught to us old-timers, at least here in the U.S. requires periods after any abbreviation.  This practice is slowly fading away, driven, I think, by two major factors:

U.S. Postal Service
Digital text processing

The Postal Service (or USPS, as they prefer) standard addressing guidelines don't use any periods for state abbreviations.  

With digital storage of text, the periods just seem to get in the way, and many web-based data entry forms won't even accept them if you try to enter them.  

I suspect the use of periods will disappear entirely over time, except where it might be required to distinguish an abbreviations from a word.  

RE: to dot or not to dot

JulianHardy

You are correct about the full stop at the end of a sentance however the use of it as a decimal point is not technically correct.

What I was taught was that the decimal point should be placed half way up not at the base where the full stop is. In maths the full stop can actually take the place of a multiplication sign. For example 2.5.3=30 however due to the expanding use of computers the full stop is now used to take the place of a decimal point as there is no other option although it is not technically correct

RE: to dot or not to dot

Just to confuse things, many European countries use the comma as the decimal separator.  For example, 20.83 is written as 20,83.

RE: to dot or not to dot

And in those cases, is the "decimal" point used as the thousands separator?

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources