Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations

Expand "e.g." to "for example"

Is this a good edit? @Mikepyne: Per MOS:LATINABBR I'm not seeing it as our usual editing practice. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems to me like something totally innocuous on an individual basis but would be instantly disruptive if pursued or insisted upon across pages. The screen reader point is not persuasive to me for this specific case—to me it is natural to enunciate it as an initialism as a screen reader would.Remsense ‥ 论 11:40, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I might actually rewrite the last one completely, because the basic point in that para is totally wrong! Andy Dingley (talk) 15:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

From a side discussion I found that Mikepyne derived the screenreader rationale from a misinterpretation of the InsideGovUK blog article linked below. That article found "eg" (and "ie") without the periods to be a problem, and says explicitly that "e.g." isn't a problem for screenreaders, though it goes on to give other reasons to replace it. Largoplazo (talk) 10:17, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It may not yet be in the normal editing practice; I would advocate it should be.

Have a look at https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2016/07/20/changes-to-the-style-guide-no-more-eg-and-ie-etc/

In the context of the page I edited, the first replacement improves the reading flow. The second case, where the example text is in parentheses, is perhaps an instance where e.g. is more appropriate. Applying that difference consistently is challenging, though!

It would be worth investigating other style guides to see what other sites and users recommend. For example, https://universaldesign.ie/communications-digital/customer-communications-toolkit-a-universal-design-approach/customer-communications-toolkit-a-universal-design-approach-navigation/digital/writing-for-the-web Mikepyne (talk) 08:23, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Autism#Acronyms

Editors are invited to comment at Talk:Autism#Acronyms on whether an acronym needs to be defined if it is only used in the references. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:54, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Question on MOS:ACRO1STUSE

Hello,

This came up at a recent FAC, and didn't want to derail it by litigating then while it was open. What is the current intent of our 1st use policy? There are two lines but could potentially be read to contradict each other. We have first:

If there is an article about the subject of an acronym (e.g. NATO), then other articles should use the same style (capitalisation and punctuation) as that main article. If no such article exists, then style should be resolved by considering consistent usage in source material.

This is immediately followed by:

Unless specified in the "Exceptions" section below, an acronym should be written out in full for the first time

So, suppose there's a topic that uses the acronym form as the article title, or it's uncontroversially accepted that sources near-exclusively use the acronym form. Which is it? The first guideline suggests that we follow the usage of the Wikipedia article or sources, and use the acronym directly. The second suggests we spell it out regardless.

If the answer is the first, then great, we're done. If the answer is the second, that the guideline is still potentially a bit vague. "Unless specified in the "Exceptions" section below" sound very final, and yet the section goes on to describe the reasoning behind exceptions. This includes "something most commonly known by its acronym, in which case the expansion can be omitted". So... do we trust editors to apply this, or is the first sentence meant as a strict prohibition - if you think you've found an exception, then you need to get it added to The List first?

Onto the third layer. If we trust editor discretion, we are again done. If there is in fact a hard-and-fast rule, Exceptions list or nothing, then I'd argue we need to expand our Exceptions list, ideally with a class of cases rather than specific examples (but if we need to do specific examples, so be it.) The class I'm thinking of is something like "vestigal acronym" where the spelled-out meaning is essentially never used by the organization and rarely used in sources, especially if the original title is dated or outright offensive. I'll give what is hopefully an easy, historical example: The Arc, which isn't even capitalized any more (it used to be the ARC). The reason is clear: "retarded" was a neutral, scientific term in the 1950s, but became a pejorative by the 1980s and 90s, and the organization itself stopped highlighting itself as the "Association for Retarded Citizens" long before it actually changed its name. We don't need to limit test by mandating using the dated, old name, even in a hypothetical Wikipedia of 1990 or when discussing the organization historically.

This came up more specifically when discussing the NAACP, which basically never uses its spelled-out form as "colored" is considered dated and impolite at best in American English, offensive at worst. Their own website never uses the spelled-out origin, neither in their about section or their history page. The Wikipedia article is at "NAACP". It makes zero sense for our MOS to mandate something that our own article calls potentially a "slur", that sources don't use anymore, and that the organization itself doesn't use anymore. Obviously, including the historic name is fine for the article on the organization itself, but it's irrelevant and distracting on other articles, especially ones concerning history after the 1960s or so. It's not relevant to bring up a linguistic quirk. And a reader who isn't familiar with the group will be more helped by seeing the acronym they actually use rather than the acronym's origin they used in 1911-1950 or so, but don't really use much anymore (even if it remains on the books).

So... what does our current policy imply? (Hoping it's just the first option, where we follow the Wikipedia article / sources in these cases.) Pinging @Gog the Mild and Generalissima: who participated in the earlier discussion as well. SnowFire (talk) 02:37, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure that I understand your point here. You seem to think that there is a contradiction between the two quotes you start with. (Do I have that right?) Imagine there is an article titled MaA about men at arms. If using the acronym in another article you would need to both use the full version at first mention and use the form in the title of the different article (MaA, not eg MAA). Or am I missing your point? I am trying to ensure we are addressing the same point here. If we are, I think the solution is to discuss adding NAACP to the Exceptions. If you then wish to discuss adding a whole class then fine, but I have doubts as to whether a working definition can be agreed. I also note that the example you use (Arc) is no longer current, which leads me to suspect that this hypothetical class may contain few (perhaps just one?) acronyms. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:28, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Full stops (periods)

The style guide says "Modern style is to use a full point (period) after a shortening (see § Shortenings for exceptions) but no full points within an acronym. In the unusual case of an acronym containing full points between letters, it should also have a full point after the final letter."

It specifies acronym, but not initialism or other abbreviations, and it's not clear whether this rule applies to all. There are very few of these in British and Australian English that retain full stops - UK, CSIRO, etc. It's not common usage to insert full stops in or after MSc, PhD, BA, etc. (and spelt thus on the DAB pages), but the guidance is not clear in this style guide. Can we establish consensus here to elucidate what is preferred (including alternatives if needed, and examples). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 10:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

• On the initialism point: acronym is commonly (usually?) understood in a broader sense with no distinction made between those that are read as individual letters versus as syllabic words. Maybe this is overly blunt, but this seems like a technicality that could only generate confusion if one is going out of their way to wedge their way into it
• I swear the MOS mentions not to dot [{xt|PhD}} somewhere. Not sure if it's in all the right places, but at some point the MOS can't be taken accountable for all the things we must learn eventually, esp. as it is less commonly used compared to other expressly mentioned exceptions.

Remsense ‥ 论 10:36, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

You may be thinking of where it appears in the MOS:COMMONABBR list. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:47, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

When did this "broader sense" come into use? I was always taught that an acronym was called that because it made an actual word ("name", thus "-nym") and not a bunch of letters. I will resist the urge to be equally blunt about those who use this "broader sense". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

See acronym. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Khajidha - not the way I was taught, even if it does appear to be wrongly used frequently, especially by Americans, I think. Wikipedia makes the distinction in the templates Template:R from acronym and Template:R from initialism. And whatever you think about the usage of the words acronym and initialism, IMO opinion it is better to spell it out here for those of use who do make the distinction.

Thank you, Gog the Mild, for that link. I did not spot it because I did not scroll down that far, thinking that I had found the correct spot for what I was looking for. I will add it as a see also at the top of the full stops section - feel free to discuss further here if you don't like the look of it. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I won't oppose that. Remsense ‥ 论 03:37, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

When did this "broader sense" come into use? — According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edition, the definition for acronym includes "a word formed from initial letters ...; loosely an abbreviation composed of initial letters. M20", ie since mid-20th century (1930–1969). It's not clear whether M20 applies to "loosely an abbreviation..." or only to "a word formed from initial letters", but the 6th edition was published in 2007 so the broader sense has certainly been around since then. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:45, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

How did they come to be referred to as “full points” in the MoS, anyway? Thats a minority usage, compared to the much more common “period” (US) or “full stop” (UK+). Introducing a third term when the MoS already contains the main two variants is hardly helpful? MapReader (talk) 13:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Notice of discussion on use of "DRC" for the Democratic Republic of the Congo

An editor has opened a discussion on the use of acronyms in the body of the article Democratic Republic of the Congo, which may be of interest to editors here. You are invited to participate at Talk:Democratic Republic of the Congo § Proposal to Clarify ‘Congo’ Usage and Primary Reference. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:27, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Template talk:Country data U.S. Virgin Islands § Undotted "US Virgin Islands" as shortname alias?

Editors are invited to comment at Template talk:Country data U.S. Virgin Islands § Undotted "US Virgin Islands" as shortname alias? on whether "U.S. Virgin Islands" or "US Virgin Islands" should be used Shingkei (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The abbr template - how often - revisited

Regarding Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations/Archive 6#The abbr template - how often? - Mauls (talk · contribs) is doing it again, see User talk:Mauls#Your reverts of my edits. Notifying Primefac who participated last time. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)