The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Abbreviations

ABBREVIATIONS or “shortenings” are used in writing to save time and space, or it may be to ensure secrecy. They are of two kinds, consisting either in the omission of some letters or words, or in the substitution of some arbitrary sign. In the earliest times, when uncial or lapidary characters were used, abbreviations by omission prevailed, such as we find in the inscriptions on monuments, coins, etc. The ancient copiers of MSS. invented many contractions to facilitate their labor. Greek MSS. abound in such, and hence often cannot be read without a previous regular study of Greek palæography. From MSS. these contractions were transferred to the printed editions of Greek authors, and have been only wholly disused within the past century; hence regular lists of them were given in the earlier Greek grammars, because the knowledge of them was absolutely essential to the student. Some of the commoner are still given in some grammars, as many Greek works are accessible only in editions full of them. Among the Romans the marks of abbreviation, called notæ or compendia scribendi, were so numerous that, in a classification by L. Annæus Seneca, they amount to 5,000. With the Latin language the ancient Roman abbreviations passed to the Middle Ages, appearing first on inscriptions and coins, then in manuscripts, and, more especially after the 11th century, in charters and other legal documents, and the practice continued in these long after the invention had made it unnecessary in books. The use of them in legal documents was forbidden by an act of Parliament passed in the reign of George II. In ordinary writing and printing few abbreviations are now employed. The abbreviations by using the initials of words are chiefly confined to titles, dates, and a few phrases: A. M.–Magister Artium, Master of Arts; A. D.–Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord; F. R. G. S.–Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. In the following list most of the abbreviations that are likely to be met with by modern readers are alphabetically arranged, save chemical elements, for which see table of. The standard abbreviations used in library catalogues are also given. For Latin abbreviations see Campelli’s ‘Dizionario di Abbreviature’ (Milan, 1899); Dobbs’ ‘Abbreviations, British and Foreign’ (1911).