In formal correspondence or any formal or technical writing is it ever bad form to not use an abbreviation?
With the possible exception that the Post Office prefers the two letter state codes, aren’t you allways safe if you write out words that could otherwise be abbreviated?
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any instance in which abbreviations are always prefered. In many styles, it’s required to spell out acronyms and initializations on first reference, and then it’s okay to use the abbreviated forms. However, with well-known institutions, like NASA and NATO, it’s acceptable to refer to them as such on first reference.
The object is to make it easy for the reader. If you write out “National Aeronautic and Space Administration” every single time for NASA, it gets very tiring to read. On the flip side, there’s the danger of “alphabet soup,” where every other sentence contains acronyms or initializations. Read an NGO report and you’ll know what I’m talking about. It becomes non-sensical.
That said, I actually can think of where abbreviations are preferable. Latin abbreviations such as ‘i.e.,’ ‘e.g.’, ‘etc,’ and the such are rarely, if ever, written out. I would never ever think of writing those out (except for effect.)
Actually, there’s plenty more than just Latin ones:
BC
BCE
a.m./p.m. (okay, that’s Latin)
UHF
VHF
and plenty more in technical writing…
Yes, Mr. pfbob
Thanks, I suppose there were some pretty obvious one’s I wasn’t thinking of, and as mentioned re-writing out entire titles when there are common and accepted abbreviations.
But, for example, I am often criticized because in my correspondense I like to write out Street or Seventh or Suite as opposed to their abbreviations, I just think it looks better, on the few occurances where I need to write a letter because an email isn’t formal enough I want it to look God-damned formal. How about in these occurances, am I wrong, or just stubborn?
Thanks, I suppose there were some pretty obvious one’s I wasn’t thinking of, and as mentioned re-writing out entire titles when there are common and accepted abbreviations.
But, for example, I am often criticized because in my correspondence I like to write out Street or Seventh or Suite as opposed to their abbreviations, I just think it looks better, on the few occurances where I need to write a letter because an email isn’t formal enough I want it to look God-damned formal. How about in these occurances, am I wrong, or just stubborn?
damnit
FWIW, I wouldn’t criticize you on that. Generally, I do abbreviate common street addresses if they’re more than four letters. I don’t spell out “boulevard” or “street” or “avenue.” But I don’t like abbreviating “Road” as “Rd,” even though it’s accepted. In certain cases, like, say, “St. Claire St.,” I tend to write out the “street” in that case, because it looks a bit odd to my eyes to have two "st."s referring to two different words. But I wouldn’t say using abbreviations looks informal in street addresses. It’s a commonly accepted practice. Also, writing out “Seventh” for “7th” makes it ever-so-slightly more difficult for the postman, IMHO. "
Hey, pfbob, I was pleased to see that there exists someone else who likes to write out street names in full. I thought eccentric me was the only one in the whole wide world.
I think in the Navy, it’s considered correct to spell out Mister when it’s part of an officer’s title. At least I’ve seen it printed that way enough times.
How about “Mrs”? I don’t think “Mistress” is an acceptable alternative.
From my experience, it seems that Mrs. is becoming archaic, as Ms. is used instead. Anytime I refer to a woman with a title other than Dr. (or Hon., Judge, Prof., etc.), even when I know she is married, I normally use Ms. Almost all legal documents that I encounter use Ms. (although that doesn’t mean that the lawyers drafting such documents don’t make glaring grammatical errors 
).
Of course, some married or widowed women prefer to be referred to as Mrs., in which case that form is used.
I guess the professional usage of Ms. is based in part on the fact that sometimes one doesn’t know the marital status of the woman, as well as the fact that usually a woman’s marital status isn’t relevant in the matter. Further promoting the use of Ms. over Mrs. is that many women keep their surname after marriage, as saying “Mrs. X” implies that there is a “Mr. X”, while in fact he might be Mr. Y (although given Western patriarchal tradition, I’m sure many people have accidentally referred to Ms. X’s husband as Mr. X, even if he’s actually Mr. Y).
On the other hand, in some matters involving marital status, using Mrs. might make sense (for instance, in my line of work, tenant succession rights can be based on marital status). Even so, I only use Mrs. when the Mrs. refers to herself as such beforehand.
Are there circumstances in which a non-married or -widowed woman is referred to as Mrs.? I’m assuming in a D/s context such abbreviating isn’t allowed and is strictly punished 
I use Mr., Dr. and Ms. fairly regularly and don’t abbreviate them, but I never thought that using the long forms was incorrect.
Anytime I use an acronym (other than in informal writing such as message boards ), I spell out the word first and then put the acronym in brackets. Of course, I only do this when I know that I will be using the acronym again, and do not use the long form after the introduction of the acronym.
Well, the Post Office still objects to this – obviously, they would prefer that everyone use the standard abbreviations so that it’s easier to route & deliver the mail. Of course, they’ll take it anyway – it just takes longer for such mail to go thru the postal system.
See here for their list of the abbreviations they want you to use. Or just got to their Zip Code lookup site ( here ) and fill in any address, and you will see the way they prefer that it be written for most efficient delivery. Try it on your own address!
All this applies only to the address you put on the outside of an envelope – you can use anything you want elsewhere.
But using the full words instead of the common, standard abbreviations may seem odd to many people. I know I recently read a book where the author never used any contractions, like it’s, I’ve, I’ll, etc. I have to say that I did notice this, and it made the conversations in his book seem rather stilted to me.
Umm, just a thought here: you may want to focus on spelling as well as abbreviations:
always
ones (not “one’s.” This is my biggest pet peeve)
occurrence
correspondence
There are a number of proper nouns which are never spelled out. For example, the proper form of the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador is St. John’s; this helps distinguish it from Saint John, New Brunswick (where I was born, and which is never abbreviated.)
yeah, yeah, yeah
and my biggest pet peave is people correcting spelling mistakes on message boards
hey, commasense. Welcome to the boards.
Not sure you meant it this way, but try not be be snarky, 'k? The OP was clearly written and asking a legitimate question. We try not to criticize spelling unless it’s relative to the thread.
man, I’ve gotta learn to type faster.
i think your speed was right on,Ruby , you just took the time to gently prod whereas i went for the quicker annoyed resignation
Sorry, not trying to be snarky, but it seemed to me that someone concerned about proper forms in formal writing would be concerned about spelling, too. But maybe that’s an incorrect assumption.
To the point of the OP (sort of): In my database I always spell out Saint and Fort and other commonly abbreviated words in city names so that they will be alphabetized correctly. But it seems to me that few others go to this trouble. Another pet peeve (not that anyone asked): Alphabetized lists in which items starting with “The” or “A” are listed under T or A, instead of by the second word.
Good point, commasense. This just happened to be the second post I read tonight where you were “correcting” someone so perhaps I jumped to a snarky conclusion.
I also spell out Saint and Fort and Street and Road. It just makes sense to me.
Anyone that would alphabetize “The Blob” under “T” needs a lesson in proper alphabetation…heh heh.