Full stops and abbreviations

Sometimes, some people think of their names as not merely names but probably a sentence.

Why else would people use a punctuation mark after writing their name and surname? Unless they are unaware of the rules and are only trying to be safe rather than being sorry.

This month, find out more about this unique little blooper and some rules surrounding it to ensure you always manage to write it right.

Time and again, you will notice people using a full stop after signing off emails, e.g.

Best regards,

Sandeep Takle.

The rule suggests that full stops are used only at the end of a sentence or an abbreviation. Our names and surnames are indeed not sentences or abbreviations; hence, there is no place for a full stop.

This only applies in case one is writing names and surnames in a sentence, e.g.

My name is Sandeep Takle.

or

I spoke to a person by the name Jerry Jose.

In these cases, full stops are required.

While on the topic, let me give you the Queen’s view on the different kinds of abbreviations so that you get your full stops right every single time.

Put acronyms, contractions, initialisms, and shortenings are all abbreviations.

Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of other terms and pronounced as they are spelled, not as separate letters. For example:

FCM (Financial Crime Mitigation)

SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) card

Contractions, on the other hand, are a type of abbreviation in which letters from the middle of the word are omitted. For example:

Dr (Doctor)

Ltd (Limited)

You do not need to use a complete stop at the end of contractions because the last letter of the original word is still present. So, technically speaking, you will write ‘Mr’ and not ‘Mr.’

Initialisms are abbreviations that consist of the initial (i.e., first) letters of words and are pronounced as separate letters when spoken. For example:

U.K. (United Kingdom)

BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)

A full stop is not required after the letters in an initialism. In American English, certain initialisms may include full stops if that is the preferred style. For example, US and U.S. are both correct, as long as you use them consistently.

Shortenings are abbreviations in which the beginning or end of the word has been dropped. In some cases, both the beginning and the end have been omitted. For example:

Flu (influenza)

Telly (television)

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You do not need to use a full stop unless the shortening is one created specifically for use in writing, for example:

Etc. (et cetera)

So where does the word ‘short form’ fit in all this? Well, it surely does not seem to be a very formal word. Neither the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary nor Wikipedia appears to find it worth including. What we call a ‘short form’ is nothing but some abbreviation.