Abbreviations

ABBREVIATIONS

With the compliments of www.mweducational.co.uk

An abbreviation is a word that has been shortened to its initial letter or sound. There are two sorts of abbreviations:-

1) Where a word (sometimes in Latin) has been shortened to its first few letters. "e.g." is short for "exempli gratia". In English this means "for example".

2) Where a name of an organisation has been shortened to the first letters of each of the words in its name. e.g. British Broadcasting Corporation is BBC

Note: It is now common practice for abbreviations using capital letters to miss out the full stops after each letter. Lower case letters tend to keep the capital letter.

Here is a list of the main abbreviations that are useful for a primary school child:

AA - Automobile Association
am - ante meridian (before noon)
BA - Bachelor of Arts
BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
BC - Before Christ
BST - British Summer Time
C - Centigrade
c. - circa (about)
Co. - company/county
dept. - department
Dr - Doctor
Ed. - editor/edited by
EEC - European Economic Community
esp. - especially
FA - Football Association
GB - Great Britain
g - gram
HMS - Her/His Majesty's Ship
i.e. - id est (that is)
IOU - I owe you
JP - Justice of the Peace
l - litre
Ltd - Limited
m - metre/married
MA - Master of Arts
m.p.h. - miles per hour
p.a. - per annum (each year)
p.m. - post meridian (after midday)
PE - Physical Education
RAC - Royal Automobile Club
Rev. - Reverend (put before a vicar's name)
SOS - Save Our Souls
St. - Saint/street
TV - Television
UK - United Kingdom
VC - Victoria Cross
Xmas - Christmas

Above extract from "The Primary English Directory"