Wiktionary talk:Policy – Abbreviations

The first draft can be found at: Wiktionary:Policy_-_Abbreviations/first_draft.

Policy problems

There are some real problems with this draft policy. Specific exmaples:

1. LASER instead of laser. Since laser is an acronym, it should use only capital letters according to policy (1). How should we handle acronyms that have taken on an existence as an independent word?
2. mass instead of Mass.. This is the abbreviation for the US state of Massachusetts, a word that is frequently abbreviated because it is hard to spell. By the listed policy (2), even abbreviations of proper nouns would use lowercase, and they should never use periods. Shouldn't we make an exception for abbreviations of proper nouns?
3. phd instead of Ph.D. or PhD. Why should a familiar abbreviation like this have an artificial entry header? This is particularly confusing since phd is a form that has no meaning at all.

That's all I can think of for now. --EncycloPetey 05:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I support the comments by EncylcloPetey. And, on looking at the policy, found it almost unintelligible without some meaningful expamples.--Richardb 07:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

1. Acronyms that have been assimilated into English as words in their own right are set in lowercase type because most people no longer think of them as acronyms. We should not encourage readers to spell laser as LASER as that would be lexicographically incorrect and not be an accurate description of how the word is spelled. The word is technically no longer an acronym. I suppose we could create an entry titled "LASER" and add a note to it labelling it as out of date, though.
2. Abbreviations of proper nouns, on the other hand, generally have their first letters capitalized (e.g., T.E. Lawrence).
3. Corporate, professional, and governmental titles are capitalized when they form a part of a person's name, unless the name is being used as an appositive:

President John Tyler
Senator William Fulbright, M.D.

but
Arkansas's late former senator, William Fulbright

Source: "Abbreviations: Capitalization", Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writer's and Editors, p. 79.

--Primetime 10:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

use lowercase letters, numbers and slashes only

Oppose. There must be other counterexamples besides &c. 72.177.113.91 01:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Like A&B, A&M, and A&E. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

English only

As I see no references to other languages, I'm assuming that the main page is all English specific. For instance, Spanish entries here use fullstops/periods for abbreviations. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)